


The Pet

by ArdenChase



Series: The Pet [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Implied Mpreg, Light BDSM, M/M, Master/Pet, Mpreg, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Other, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2019-10-16 02:20:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17540792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdenChase/pseuds/ArdenChase
Summary: Ryder encounters a pet at the commerce station, and gets more than he bargained for.





	1. Ryder

**Author's Note:**

> The Pet is an ongoing serial with chapters posted weekly.

He was too masculine to be a girl and too pretty to be a boy. I call him “he” because it’s my default designation; sexist of me, I know, but I’ve never been accused of sensitivity. Just ask the doctor on my ship. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a pig.

Boy or girl, he was undoubtedly a pet. Pink hair framed a pale face and green eyes too emerald to be anything other than genetic modification. Full pouty lips painted in cherries. His eyes were ringed in black with smoky grey lids. Young. Nineteen, maybe twenty cycles.

Actually, he could make for a passable girl, I revised, when he slid into the barstool next to me and eyed me through thick black eyelashes. His chest beneath the skimpy tank clinging to pale skin was fuller than a male’s, though not quite breasts.  

“Want to buy me a drink?” he asked, with just the right amount of husk in his voice.

Did I? My cock said sure, but then, it wasn’t picky. I wasn’t ugly, if I did say so myself—damn good looking according to my bed partners, and they couldn’t all be lying. But a pretty thing like this, coming on to me within ten minutes of me sitting my ass down? Something else was afoot.

The collar at his throat said he belonged to someone. I glanced past him to the group of merchants drinking in a booth in the far corner of the bar; I was doing business with them tomorrow. One of them, a Korl, toasted me and gestured: _go on, help yourself_. So the pet was a friendly gesture to butter me up before negotiations began. Classy.

I knew better than to let my dick do the thinking, but it had been a while since I’d been laid. And the vibes he was giving off, that mix of male and female, set off a weird chemical reaction in my brain. I preferred men but I’d had my share of fun with women, and here was the best of both worlds.

“Your master lets you drink?”

He peered up at me through thick lashes. “My master lets me do a lot of things.”

“That so?” I looked him up and down. Mostly down. The tank top ended in tight pants encased in elegant boots the same shade and leather-like texture as the collar. There was a noticeable bulge. “What are you drinking?”

He gave the name of some fruity complicated drink, the kind that gave bartenders heartburn though this one seemed used to the order when I called it out to him. The merchants had been there a few days, then. Not particularly suspicious; this station was a popular place in which to trade. But I liked to take note of such things.

The pet leaned forward far enough I could smell his perfume. “My master thought you’d like me.”

“You don’t mind getting shared out to your master’s business partners?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes.” He looked me up and down, the same as I’d done him. “Tonight? Maybe, maybe not.”

I laughed. Little fucker. The bartender dropped off the drink and the kid played with the end of the umbrella sticking out of it.

“What’s your name?”

“Ash.”

“Ryder,” I offered. The kid shrugged as if to say, _who cares_? I wasn’t sure yet how much of the brattiness was an act.

“So you’re, uh.” I had a rare case of the tongue-tied. “A Faenon.”

He stiffened. “Yes.”

That explained the male/female vibe. Faenon were born fully equipped for all contingencies. Just another demonstration that the universe was a vast and diverse place.

A heavy hand came down on my shoulder. I turned to face the merchant who had toasted me earlier. He had a Korl’s thick body and blue-tinged skin.

“You like my pet?” He spoke Standard with a heavy accent. He was also drunk.

I shrugged. The Korl had placed his other hand proprietarily on the kid’s collar, which was too tight as it was. Ash’s face went noticeably blank. Or at least I noticed.

“Korl hospitality is legendary. I wanted to give you a taste. What do you think, Ash? You want to show my friend here some hospitality?”

Ash threw his head back in a provocative pose—which also conveniently separated him from the Korl’s grip, I saw—and looked me over through half-lidded eyes. “I’d let him fuck me.”

My cock didn’t seem to care that the words were too practiced to be anything other than an act. It was ready to go. The Korl guffawed. “See, he likes you. And he doesn’t like anyone. Go on, then, have him for a night. My treat.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“I told you, Korl hospitality.” He raised his glass, liquid sloshing over his cup, and wandered back to the rest of his drunk fool friends.

Asshole.

“Looks like you got a winner there,” I said.

“Yeah, won the fucking lottery.” The kid took a sip of his drink. I didn’t think pets were usually this mouthy, but I didn’t know shit about Faenon, other than the rumors.

“How long have you been with him?”

“Look, do you want to fuck or not?”

My cock was interested enough that I was willing to go against my better judgment. “Do you?”

He was good, but not good enough to hide the slight widening of his pupils. He was being doled out like the pet he was, but I knew when someone wanted to fuck and when they didn’t.

“Yeah,” he said, wetting his lips.

“Then let’s go.”

***

The quarters in these stations were nothing short of dismal, but the bed was wide enough for two and I didn’t plan on spending more than a few days here until I could sell the rest of the cargo from my last job. Ash didn’t seem to mind. I shut the door and he pulled off his tank top, already starting to work on the fastening of his pants.

“Whoa, wait,” I said. “It isn’t a race.”

He gave me a look that probably had more to do with his youth than status. Everything was a race to the young, until they woke up one day to find twenty years had gone by in the blink of an eye.

I put a hand over his, and after a swift tug of war, he let me take over the undressing part with a long-suffering sigh. I kind of wanted to kiss him, but didn’t want to assume. I didn’t have much experience with pets but I had a lot of experience with prostitutes, and everyone had different levels of acceptable intimacy.

“If you don’t want to do this, you can stay here a few hours and go back.”

He snorted incredulously. “You want to fuck, I want to fuck. It’s not complicated.”

“All right.” I finished undoing his pants, and started to pull them down. Despite having a pretty good idea of what I’d find, I was still unsure. So far my cock was onboard two hundred percent, but would the reality of what I’d find kill the horny buzz I had going? Only one way to find out.

I knelt to pull his boots off, first, which threw him a little. I saw him bite his lip, give me an uncertain look at odds with the attitude he’d given so far. Boots off, I tugged those tight pants down smooth, leanly muscled thighs, and helped him step out of them.

Then I glanced up. Felt a wave of relief at seeing his cock. My own cock was still going strong in my increasingly tight pants. He was hairless, but whether by nature or owner preference, I didn’t know. His cock was encased in a metal cage.

“My master doesn’t have much use for it,” he said, gesturing to his locked-up dick. He was trying for diffidence, but not even the practiced nonchalance of a pet could hide that it bothered him.

“You have a key?”

He laughed shortly. “No.”

That was disappointing. I didn’t go for forced chastity in my bedmates; the more bodily fluids the better, in my book. But not much to be done about it. A metal ring circled his balls, which were small but still present.

It was what was behind those balls that I was less sure about.

“You’re freaking out,” he said flatly.

“I’m not freaking out,” I said, though I was, kind of. I wanted to see and I didn’t want to see. “Can I….” I gestured.

He seemed to get what I was after, and gave a tight nod and shifted his legs apart another inch. I touched his caged cock and saw his balls twitch. I reached behind his balls and felt the warm, wet folds of his pussy.

“Fuck,” I said.

My brain was shorting out, though my cock still seemed to like this just fine. He was so fucking wet. My fingers slid around, and dipped an inch or two inside. I felt his pussy walls clench around them. Sweet musk mixed with the sharper tang of his precome.

I withdrew my fingers, bumping up against the hard node of his clit—I couldn’t even imagine what his orgasms were like—and wiped them off on my pants. I wanted to fuck him, badly. “How do you like it?”

“What?”

“What do you like in bed? Without a key for that, you fucking me is out, but I’m game for anything else you want to try.”

“I….” His eyes narrowed. He said tightly, “I just want you to fuck me.”

There was fucking and there was fucking. I liked a little dominance play in mine, and while I couldn’t be sure, I didn’t think he’d be averse to it. The pet thing added a layer of complexity, however. I watched him carefully. “You going to be good for me?”

Startled, he sucked in a breath and looked up at me. I took a handful of his god-awful pink hair and tugged, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make him feel it. “I said, are you going to behave?”

He wet his lips. He was going to ruin the paint job, but I was already looking forward to seeing that red lipstick smeared all over his face. His eyes searched mine out, trying to read my level of seriousness. Oh, I was serious, but not in the way he might be thinking. Whatever was in my face must have reassured him, and he relaxed a margin. “I don’t know. Are you going to make me?”

I smiled. This was going to be fun.

I wanted to force him to his knees by his hair and order him to suck me off, but I’d last maybe a minute the state I was in. “On the bed. Get on your back, feet flat, knees up and spread.”

I released his hair, but he still didn’t move, just kept looking at me with deliberate attitude. So I smacked his ass, hard, startling a grunt from him. “Did you not hear me?”

He shrugged and sauntered over, lying back on the bed indolently. He followed directions, at least: his feet flat on the bed a few inches from his ass, spread wide enough that I could see the glisten of his folds and the sweet puckered entrance to his ass. I wished the cock cage didn’t obscure whether he was hard or not, but by the wetness of his pussy, he was into this.

I pulled my shirt off then worked on my pants. When my cock popped out he licked his lips. I smiled. I wasn’t a horse but I was respectably endowed, and I rarely got complaints.

I knelt between his legs and forced his knees wider. He arched up off the bed. “Put your hands above your head and cross your wrists.”

His eyelids lowered. “Make me.”

I turned him over and smacked his ass again. He had a beautiful ass, two perfect fleshy globes, and my hand on them made a satisfying thwack that filled the room. He struggled at first but I was half again his weight and held him down easily. His ass was red in no time, and he was mewling little sounds and grunts. After a dozen smacks his muscles spasmed and he let out a little cry. I pushed his thighs apart and saw his pussy clench; the fucker had orgasmed.

When I turned him back over his lips were parted and his eyes were all pupil in post-orgasmic daze. Jesus. He was the gift I never knew existed.

“Put your hands above your head.”

He eyed me some more—how I’d love to fuck the attitude out of him—then slowly raised his arms above his head and crossed his wrists.

“Good.”

Another caught breath and widened eyes. He liked that, and didn’t like that he did. I wondered why he’d become a pet, if he had difficulty with submission.

I pushed his knees apart and knelt between them again. He moaned when I thumbed his clit. “I don’t recall giving you permission to come.”

“I don’t recall you saying I couldn’t.”

I gave his clit a pinch, startling a gasp from him. “Take it as implied, then, that you come when I tell you to and not before.”

He shrugged.

“Brat.” I dipped my fingers in his pussy and crooked them. Ah, there it was, his sweet spot. I pressed gently, and his hips twitched. His caged cock let out a little fluid.

“I can make you come just like this. You won’t enjoy it much.” I nodded to his trapped cock. “Your dick will enjoy it even less. But I can drain you dry without you feeling much of a thing.”

“That really what you want?”

I laughed. Cheeky fucker. “No.” I nodded to his wrists. “Think you can keep those there?”

“Maybe.”

I wasn’t convinced either. I got up and looked for something suitable. Too bad they didn’t stock these rooms with bondage equipment. I gave up and grabbed my belt. I could fashion something from it.

When he saw the belt in my hands his eyes reflected a mix of panic and want. “I can keep them still.” His breath turned rapid and shallow. “You don’t need that.”

He was terrified, and at the same time, I could see how much he wanted that belt around his wrists. Now wasn’t the time to force it, however. I dropped the belt. “All right. I’ll hold you to that.”

His breathing slowed again when I knelt between his legs once more, but he was still in fight or flight mode by the panicked look in his eye and too-fast pulse at his neck. “Shh,” I said, stroking the inside of his thigh. “Take a deep breath. Wet the fingers of your right hand.” He looked at me uncertainly. “It’s okay to release your right hand, but keep your other one above your head.”

His hand shook a little when he brought his fingers to his mouth and wet two of them. “Good. Now circle your nipple. Don’t touch it yet, just circle it.”

He obeyed, though I could see that he thought it was a little weird. His nipples were larger than a human male’s. I wondered if his chest filled out more during gestation.

He was still circling his nipple in sync with my gentle stroking of his thigh. “Now touch the tip.” It had peaked up, and he drew in breath when he touched it.

 At the same time I moved from his inner thigh to his pussy, pushing two fingers deep into his folds. He moaned and twitched. “Yeah, that feels good, doesn’t it. Slut like you, you just live to be filled up. Suck your fingers.”

He put his fingers in his mouth and sucked, his green eyes locked on mine.

I moved my fingers in and out of his pussy, and slid a third one up his ass. He moaned and canted up. I would love to draw this out for hours, but I was so ready to fuck him it hurt. I withdrew my fingers and lined my cock up, then pushed in slowly.

He was tight and so fucking wet. My cock slid in with just the right amount of resistance. I lifted his knees up and braced my arms under him, so his legs rested on my shoulder. He was still sucking his fingers. Just the sight of that nearly made me come.

“Put your hand above your head again.” He withdrew his fingers and obeyed. “What do you want?”

“What?”

“Tell me what you want,” I said patiently.

He looked confused. “I want to come.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I bet you do.” I reached between us and rubbed his clit in a slow circular motion. He choked off a cry. His pussy walls convulsed. I changed the angle so I was hitting the nub of his prostate, and he cried out again. “Yeah, like that. Come for me.”

He did, so suddenly that I just barely held off my own release. I had to breathe for several seconds to control it, as he clenched and moaned and writhed under me. I wished I could see him spurt, too, but his caged cock just let out a stream of milky fluid, adding to the juices already sliding between us.

After a moment his breathing steadied and I started moving in him again.

He was sensitive, I could tell. Every press against his clit pulled a small gasp from him. His pussy just kept pulling at me, spasming at odd moments like it was still orgasming. His eyes were nearly closed they were so heavy-lidded. His wrists were still crossed above his head.

“Good,” I said, reaching up to stroke his wrists with my thumb. I watched him carefully, then closed my hand around them, keeping them immobilized. A whimper escaped him.

“Relax.” I tightened my grip and he fought it reflexively, trying to jerk away. “ _Relax_.”

His eyes screwed closed. His breathing and pulse were still too rapid for my liking, but then like a switch had been turned, he just…relaxed. Gave in.

That sign of submission was an aphrodisiac, and I couldn’t hold back my own release any longer. I pumped in him hard, two, three times, and started coming deep inside him.

When I pulled out and stretched out next to him, still holding his wrists, I saw the small shiver running convulsively across his skin. I rubbed my thumb on the inside of his wrist again and let go. “How long have you been a pet?”

He made a face. “All _faenon_ are pets.”

“The Korl enslaved you?” I frowned. The Korl had conquered the Faenon home planet more than a century ago, if my rusty history was anything to go by. I’d assumed he’d sold himself as a contract pet. “That’s illegal for sentients.”

“ _Faenon_ aren’t classified as sentient.”

His head was turned so I couldn’t see his face. But I could tell when someone was calling bullshit, however carefully couched. “That’s fucked up.”

He shrugged.

I guess my outrage didn’t mean much to him in the long run. With all our talk of civilization in the universe, most people weren’t much better than savages. Whatever anyone could away with, they would.

It was why I stayed out of politics. All I wanted was my ship and enough money to buy fuel and food, and the freedom to go where I wanted.

Ash tugged his wrists from my light grip and rose gracefully from the bed. “You can sleep here,” I offered, watching him. His ass was still red from my hand, and my cock twitched, remembering.

“My master will expect me back,” he said, pulling on his tight pants and tank top, sliding slender feet into those faux leather boots. He disappeared into the washroom and came out with his face scrubbed clean of the red lipstick that had smeared his face. My chest twisted a little, seeing him bare like that.

He hesitated. “Thank you,” he said formally, like the room wasn’t rank with the sex we’d just had. “I enjoyed that.”

His unexpected honesty made my chest twist again. Prostitutes were expert at laying on the compliments: _you were the best, honey_ , and _you made me feel so good_. But I thought he might not actually be lying. Hoped, anyway.

Then again, I thought, as I watched him leave through the air-pressured door, sometimes I was just a sucker.


	2. Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash has an agenda of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Pet is an ongoing serial with chapters posted weekly. Warning for non-con and sexual violence in this chapter.

I leaned on the wall next to the closed door until my heartbeat slowed and my breathing steadied.

Fuck. I hadn’t expected Ryder to be…that.

Good looking, sure, with short dark hair and brown-green eyes, a permanent wry twist to his mouth that was more charming than cynical. My ass burned where Ryder had smacked it, and just remembering that made my face burn as well. No one had ever asked me what I wanted when it came to sex. It was assumed I was there to satisfy whatever it was they wanted. I’d expected Ryder to be the same. Just another night servicing Tal’s trading partners, but this one I’d actually enjoyed.

_Stop romanticizing him. I’m sure he’s as much a prick as the rest of them_.

I pushed off from the wall. Tal would be expecting me. He’d probably retired to his rooms with his friends to drink the rest of the night, and the last thing I wanted was to walk into the middle of that. But as drunk as he got, he’d start missing me soon, and if I made him wait too long there’d be consequences.

This late, there were only a few others around. We’d been to this station before to trade, so I knew my way. I got a few predictable looks because of the collar and how obvious it was I’d just been fucked, but people were hands off when it came to other people’s pets, and I wasn’t worried about any of them.

As expected, Tal’s rooms reeked of alcohol and sweaty Korl and human when I entered. The lights were low and there was a heated card game going on in the corner. Tal was sprawled on the couch. He wasn’t fat but he was big, and he overflowed the space.

“Ash! My beautiful pet. Come greet your master properly.”

Tal never called me beautiful unless there were others around. I went to him obediently and perched on the corner of the sofa, hoping he’d let me get by with that.

His eyes narrowed. “Here, Ash.”

I knew that tone. I slipped off the arm into the dip made from Tal’s bulk, and hid my grimace at the sour smell of him. A sweaty arm draped over me and pulled me close. “Was he a good fuck?”

“Not as good as you, Master.”

He laughed. “Little liar. I ought to smack that pretty, lying mouth of yours.” He frowned, looking at my kissed-raw bare lips. “Go clean up and make yourself presentable. My friends are here.”

“I thought you might want some privacy,” I said, then gasped as his hand shot out to grab my bound dick and balls, twisting.

“What I want is for my pet to entertain my friends. We both know one fuck is never enough for you.”

I breathed through the pain. “Of course, Master. I’ll only be a moment.”

His hand let up. “Good pet.”

_You going to be good for me?_ I shivered at the memory of Ryder’s deep, smoky voice. The trainers used to ask us that. _Are you going to be good?_ They’d meant it as a threat. With Ryder, it had felt more like a promise.

I rose as gracefully as I could and went to the bedroom, closing and locking the door behind me. Tal wouldn’t notice, and if he did, I’d just tell him I didn’t want his friends getting a sneak peek. I had a few minutes before he’d start wondering.

I activated the station’s net console and punched in a familiar string of code. Once on the secure server, I typed in the same information I’d been giving this last year.

_Arrived 26:189. Indium and Himerian spice. Leaving in three days. Next stop Harvir_. 

I finished the transmission and waited a minute. For all I knew, there was no one on the other end. I rarely got a response.

No response this time, either, even when I stretched it another minute. I shut down the server, careful to erase any tracks, and headed for the shower.

It always felt good to clean up after sex, but I was a little sorry to wash Ryder’s scent away. It would be a nice memory, anyway. Something to think about and jack off to, if Tal ever let my cock out of this cage. Like every other being in the universe who wasn’t _faenon_ , he couldn’t deal with me having both male and female reproductive systems. Out of sight, out of mind.

I took my time reapplying my makeup and shimmying into a sleek little sheath I knew Tal liked, hoping it would abate some of his irritation that it was taking me this long.

As I’d hoped, his eyes lit up when he saw me. He’d left the sofa for the card game in the corner. “Ash. Come over here and give me luck.”

I sauntered over under the appreciative eyes his friends, which Tal soaked up like nectar. He did like showing me off. I perched on his expansive thigh and draped my arm around his neck.

“I doubt you need any luck, Master.”

One of the other card players snorted. “That one never needs luck.”

Tal’s eyes narrowed, and the other players shifted uncomfortably. Then he shrugged. “Fuck off, Marin,” he said, amiably enough. “Just because you can’t find your ass from a teralope’s doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t know how to play cards.”

The table laughed, and I snuggled in closer on Tal’s lap.

He let me up after a few minutes to get them all more drinks, and I played dutiful pet for a while, even kneeling at Tal’s feet when he pushed me off his lap. I hoped they were all drunk enough to pass out soon, and that the only thing Tal had wanted me for was to show off.

No luck. “Ash, go over there and suck Marin’s cock. He looks like he needs to relax.”

The table laughed again, nervous laughter mixed in with the sharp scent of anticipation. They wanted a show, too, probably hoping Tal would be feeling generous enough to share his pet around.

If I refused, I’d get more than a sore mouth for my troubles. I crawled under the table until I reached Marin, and knelt up between his thighs.

Dazed, the human said, “Fuck, Tal, its mouth is pretty.”

_It_. I pushed past the burn in my chest and started unfastening Marin’s pants.

“Why does Marin get all the attention?” one of the Korl asked.

_And here it goes_.

“Feel free to fuck him while his mouth’s busy. Little slut’s constantly horny.”

“Him?”

“If it’s got a pussy, it’s a her,” a rough voice laughed, and I felt hands on my hips lifting me from under the table, then cool air as my sheath was pushed up past my hips.

_Don’t think. Just block it off. It’s not real_.

I still had a cock in front of me expecting to be sucked, so I shut my mind off and let training take over. I could still remember my first trainer’s voice, instructing me how to suck his cock. He’d been young, too, maybe twenty cycles. A newbie to the training facility, and a little nervous, not that I’d noticed it then—I’d been scared shitless myself.

It hadn’t taken him long to learn the ropes, and to start treating us the way every other Korl did. I saw him soon after that drag a naked _faenon_ by the hair down the hallway to the punishment room, as hardened and faceless as the rest of them.

“A pussy and a cock. No wonder you keep them as pets.”

“What else are you going to do with an aberration? They’re lucky we didn’t exterminate them all when we took their planet. At least this way they can be useful.”

A hard cock pushed into my pussy. Human cock, a little smaller than a Korl’s. Tal hadn’t been lying: I was wet. The Korl kept us in perpetual heat, so it wasn’t like I had a choice.

Nor a choice in orgasming when the man fucking me started rubbing my clit. “Fuck! She really is a horny slut.”

“I told you,” Tal said. I heard the self-satisfied smirk in his voice. He was punishing me. Even though he’d been the one who’d told me to fuck Ryder, I hadn’t been careful enough to hide my interest in him.

“Put a plug in her ass. She likes that too.”

I braced myself for the hard plug a moment later. It was big and I wasn’t lubed, and it hurt. All the better from Tal’s point of view.

“Valun, you fuck her next. She needs a big Korl cock in her to really feel it.”

I dutifully kept working the cock in my mouth while my pussy stretched painfully from the Korl’s big cock.

With the plug in my ass, it felt like I was breaking open. _Stop thinking. It’s not real_. I sucked my cheeks and ran my tongue on the underside of the cock in my mouth, imagining it was Ryder’s. He’d had a nice cock. I hadn’t gotten the chance to taste it, but I could at least fantasize about it now. I used to do that at the facility—fantasize about other _faenon_. We weren’t allowed to fraternize like that, of course, but there’d been plenty of stealth romances out of the watchful eye of the Korl. Sometimes a look and the brush of fingers was all you needed.

Of course all those romances ended tragically—how could they not when everyone left eventually? We were only there a few years. Long enough to learn how to please our Korl masters and to be assigned a master of our own.

The cock in my mouth started spasming and shooting come down my throat, and a moment later I felt Tal’s hand on my hair, yanking my head back. “You like that, don’t you Ash?”

I wet my lips. My cunt was being ravaged, and it was all I could do not to scream. Not because of the pain, which I was used to. Sometimes I just wanted to scream. “Yes, Master.”

“Tell me how you like it.”

He wanted to humiliate me. “I love big cock in my pussy, Master.”

Tal smiled. “I know you do. Did Ryder fuck you like this?”

_No. He didn’t treat me like a thing._ “Yes, Master. He fucked me hard.”

Pain burst on my cheek from the back of Tal’s hand. “Slut.” He was furious. I shouldn’t have said that. Not that Tal gave a shit about me; he just didn’t like being showed up. “Show her who’s boss, Valun. I want her feeling it for days.”

I closed my eyes as warmth bloomed across the side of my face from the slap, and the cock pounded into me harder. _It’s not real. Stop thinking. It’s not real_.

After that, it was another. Then Tal’s cock in my mouth, and him holding my head steady while he fucked my throat.

When they’d finally had their fill and passed out, I crawled to the edge of the couch for something to hold on to. Come and what felt like blood trickled down the insides of my thighs. My throat was raw. It didn’t matter. I was practiced at eliding time from my years at the facility, and there were huge chunks of my memory that were nothing more than blurs. It was better that way.

A rough hand on my collar pushed my head to the floor. “Pets don’t use the furniture, slut. You can sleep down there.”

So Tal was still pissed. I’d endured worse.

“Yes, Master,” I said, with what little voice I had left.

I lay still on the floor until I heard Tal’s snores, then tried to get as comfortable as I could. At least the floor was carpeted.

_Tell me what you want_ , Ryder had asked.

I held on to the question like some stolen, precious thing.


	3. Ryder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder makes a trade.

I watched the Korl sift through the crate of Himerian spice I’d unloaded as a sample from my cargo hold. After what Ash had told me last night, having to deal with him was elevated to new levels of distastefulness.

“You have how many more crates?” he asked.

“Fifty,” I said.

Ash lolled in the corner wearing a tight mini-skirt and halter top, playing a game on a data pad. His pink hair was in a ponytail. The Korl certainly liked to femme him up. Then again, it was my own bias, thinking of Ash as a he.

“Ten thousand credits for the lot.”

I pulled my attention back to him. “Stop wasting my time. Seventeen.”

The Korl shrugged. “Tastes change. Himerian spice isn’t the rage anymore. You’ll have trouble offloading that many crates. I’m offering for all of them.”

He might be an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong. “Fourteen thousand, plus him.” I nodded at Ash. _You’re not really fucking over your profit margin because you feel sorry for a pet, are you?_

Apparently I was.

The Korl laughed. “Did you hear that, Ash? He really did fuck you hard last night.”

I met Ash’s eyes, not sure what to expect, but it sure as hell wasn’t alarm. He put down the data pad and drew closer to the Korl as if looking for protection. “I don’t want to leave you, Master.”

He wasn’t faking it, either. Had I miscalculated? But now the Korl was thinking about my offer. “You want to buy my pet?”

I shrugged, as if it was all the same to me. “I’m offering you a deal. Fourteen thousand for the spice, and I’ll take him off your hands. Seems to me a pet requires a lot of upkeep.”

“And you want to take that on? He really must have fucked your brains out.” The Korl laughed.

Ash said, quietly and urgently, “No, Master, please. I don’t want to go with him.”

The Korl backhanded him as casually as if picking his teeth. Ash staggered back a few steps, the side of his face red. “You should have thought of that before.”

Ash looked stricken. Still, he persisted, eyes deferentially downcast. “I want to stay with you. Please.”

He couldn’t really want to stay with someone who smacked him around, who whored him out to his business partners, could he?

“You see how tiresome he is?” The Korl laughed again. “Twelve thousand and you can have him.”

It was a lot less than the spice was worth, even with a pet thrown in. What the fuck was I doing? I didn’t need a pet.

“Deal.”

He spat in his hand and took mine.

I forced myself to shake his hand, then gestured to the station crew I’d hired to help unload the crates. When they began to take them from my docked ship, the Korl waved at his own people to begin the process of examining the cargo. He typed into his data pad. “I’ve transferred the pet’s chip to you. Once they’ve confirmed the cargo, I’ll move the credits to your account.”

Ash was still pleading with him to keep him, but the Korl was watching the crates, eyes gleaming. He’d gotten a deal. No way was a pet worth five thousand credits.

Ash glared fireballs at me when I gestured for him to come with me. Had I misread the situation that badly? He followed me into my ship’s cargo hold without resistance, but I could sense his simmering rage as we passed into the ship proper.

Then he turned on me.

“You _asshole_. You _fuckhead_. Why did you do that? Sell me back.” He launched at me, so suddenly I barely reacted quickly enough to hold him back.

“Ash—”

“You had _no right_.” He was so angry I thought he might actually get his fingers around my throat to strangle me. I activated my comm while he clawed at me. The fucker had a strong grip, I’ll give him that.

“Song, can you get down here with a tranq? Uh, quickly?”

It was like a switch had been turned on and he was now a crazed homicidal assassin. Did he actually _want_ to stay with the Korl? I was confused as fuck.

With relief, I saw my ship doctor approaching with a tranq pen. “It’s all right,” I told Ash inanely, as he whirled too late to stop her from pricking his neck with it.

He turned on me with rage-filled eyes. “You fucker,” he said, just before he collapsed bonelessly in my arms.

Song helped me ease him to the ground. “What the hell, Ryder. You bought a _pet_?”

“It’s complicated.” Apparently more so than I’d thought. I admit I’d figured Ash would be…well, something other than angry as fuck that I’d bought him.

“Well, help me get him…her to the infirmary.”

I got my arm under Ash’s legs and hoisted him up. I’d thought he’d be lighter, but considering the way he’d attacked me, I wasn’t surprised he had hidden muscle. I followed Song to the infirmary with him.

It might be my ship, but this was her space. I followed her instructions without comment, easing Ash down on the infirmary bed and straightening out the miniskirt that had hiked up when we’d moved him.

“I need him undressed, actually,” she said from across the room.

Wishing this didn’t feel like such a violation, I found the clasp and zipper of the skirt and eased it down over his hips, pulling it as gently as I could down his legs. His cock was still caged, and I swore to myself; I should have gotten the key. Hopefully Song had something to get it off with.

His hips and the insides of his thighs were bruised, some in the shape of fingers.

I gripped the side of the table. I was sure I hadn’t put those marks on him, but maybe he bruised easily? I rolled him gently to his side. His hole was red and puffy, and there was some tearing.

“I’ll do a full examination,” Song said gently, putting her hands over mine to ease Ash back.

“I didn’t do that,” I said stupidly.

“I know. Or at least I know it’s not something you’d do intentionally. Look, Ryder, I understand you’re concerned, but perhaps it’s better if you let me take it from here.”

I stepped back as she unfastened the halter top then pulled a sheet up to cover Ash’s nakedness.

“At least let me take the collar off.”

She nodded, and my fingers fumbled at the fastening of the leather collar until it finally fell free. I resisted the urge to throw it into the corner, and put it next to the rest of Ash’s clothes.

There was some abrasion where the collar had rubbed too tightly on Ash’s skin. Song examined his neck clinically. “I’ll put a salve on it. There’s no permanent damage.”

“I don’t have a key for the cage.”

“I’ll find a way to get it off,” she said. “Ryder,” she added gently, a reminder that she was kicking me out.

“Okay. Let me know when he wakes up.” I saw myself out.

I made it a few steps before leaning heavily against the side of the corridor. Who the fuck had done that to him? I would have noticed bruising like that, so it had to have been the Korl, after Ash had left my room.

I didn’t care how pissed off Ash was at me. I wasn’t sorry I’d gotten him away from that bastard.

I checked my data pad. Ash’s chip had been transferred to my name. The credits were there, too. At least the Korl wasn’t a cheat.

I went to the cargo bay to pay the contractors who’d helped unload the spice, then closed the cargo doors and took the lift to the cockpit.

 Hyo was at the navigation console deep in preflight routine. “Where’s Ell?

“She’s in the mess.” A few strands of Hyo’s greying hair had escaped her pony tail, and she pushed them back impatiently. “We’re not cleared to take off for another three hours.”

Three hours. All I wanted to do was get the fuck off this commerce station. “We, uh, picked up a new crew member.”

Hyo swiveled my way, her dark eyes missing nothing. “For what?”

Good question. “He was the pet of the Korl I sold the spice to. I made him part of the deal.”

She blinked. “Kind of hard to split a pet five ways.”

“He’ll come out of my share. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

She turned back to the console. Not much distracted her for long. “I didn’t figure you for buying a pet.”

“He won’t be a pet on this ship.”

“So what will he be?”

That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? I had no idea if Ash had any skills other than being a really good lay. “We’ll figure it out.”

She snorted. “If you say so.”

I couldn’t blame her for her skepticism. I hadn’t exactly thought this thing through.

I found Ell in the mess with Dakarai, who must have just come in from checking the engines if his coveralls were any sign. “We’re taking off in three hours. Did the supplies come in?”

“An hour ago,” Ell said. “I put the MREs away, but you know I’m a pilot, not a restocker.”

“Yeah, I know.” It was my job to manage the ship’s supplies, but I’d been distracted. “The spice sale went through. I’ll transfer your shares.”

“What was the commotion in the cargo bay?” Dak asked. He was already halfway through one of the new MREs. For a skinny kid, he ate like a horse.

“Just, uh, a new crew member.”

Two sets of eyes zeroed in on me. “A new crew member?” Ell said carefully.

“He’s in the infirmary with Song for a couple of days, but I’m sure you’ll get to meet him soon.” _If Ash doesn’t claw my eyes out before then_. “He’s, uh, Faenon.”

Dak frowned. “Didn’t the Korl enslave them when they conquered their planet?”

Apparently everyone was up on current events except me. “Yes, well, he’s not here. Enslaved, I mean.”

“Aw, Ryder, you bought a pet, didn’t you,” Ell said.

Dak glared laser beams my way. “That’s not okay. They’re not contract pets, you know. They don’t have any say in the matter.”

“I just told you I’m not keeping him as a pet. He’s free to do whatever he likes.”

_Within the confines of your ship. You didn’t give him much choice about that, did you?_

Maybe Ash had a point, being pissed off at me.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said.

 ***

 We were two hours away from that godawful commerce station when Song finally pinged me.

“Is he awake?” I pulled my pants on over still-drying skin. I’d just gotten out of the shower when she called.

“Not yet. I gave him another sedative to let him sleep a few more hours. But I wanted to talk to you first.”

That didn’t bode well. I finished fastening my pants and threw on a shirt.

I found her in her office next to the infirmary, poring over a computer screen. Through the glass wall adjoining the rooms, I could see Ash sleeping on the infirmary bed. “Ryder, have a seat.”

Song hadn’t been an official medical professional in years, not since she’d lost her license, but she still had the natural lofty tone of a doctor expecting obedience.

I sat.

“I’ve been going through the readout from his chip. It monitors biological functions, most of which are standard—heartbeat, blood pressure, toxicity levels. But this, here,” she pointed to the screen. “From what I can tell, it’s a hormone regulator, but I don’t understand its function. I’m not familiar with Faenon hormonal makeup, and there’s very little information available on them in the public domain. The Korl keep those records sealed.”

All I could see on the screen was a series of blips and squiggles, with some unfamiliar symbols that must be Korl. “Does the chip pose a danger to him?”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll need to ask him what all of this means. And hope he knows enough to tell me.”

She wouldn’t have called me here just to tell me that. “What’s the bottom line?”

She sighed. “The bottom line is that we—you, me—are in over our heads with him. Her. I don’t even know what pronoun he prefers. From what little I’ve been able to find out in the last few hours, the Korl start training them young. I’m not just worried about whatever physiological changes they might have made. There’s likely a great deal of mental trauma involved.”

Ash hadn’t seemed particularly traumatized to me, but who knew what was going on beneath the surface. I hadn’t expected him to attack me, either.

“I’m still not sure what you’re saying.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Now that my attention was diverted from the computer screen, I could see how exhausted she was. She’d probably been poring over this stuff for hours.

“I guess I’m saying I’m not especially equipped for this. I’m not a psychologist. I’ll do what I can, of course, but I have no idea what to recommend as far as how you…deal with him.”

“Deal with him.”

“Ryder, you had sex with him. Then you threw him into a situation where he knows no one, trusts none of us, and has nothing familiar around him. Except you. Whatever his response to you, it’s going to be couched in layers of mental coping mechanisms he’s probably developed for years. His entire life he’s been neither autonomous nor free. Don’t expect him to react the way one of your usual partners would.”

“He’s still a person. That doesn’t just go away.”

“Like I said, I’m not equipped to tell you what to do. If I told you to leave him alone, it could make him feel isolated. If I told you to take him under your wing, he could just revert back to familiar patterns.”

“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”

But I remembered the way he’d looked at the belt in my hands: the longing and the fear. I’d seen two of those layers Song was talking about: the pet Ash and what I’d thought of as the real Ash. But maybe, like she said, there were more.

“I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do with him.”

Song smiled. “Actually, I’m reassured to hear that. I just wanted to make sure you understood the scope of what we’re dealing with.”

I wasn’t sure I did, but it seemed I was going to find out. “Can I see him?”

“Yes, but don’t disturb him. I want him sleeping a few more hours.”

“You might want to get some of that yourself.”

She shrugged with the impatience of one used to long and unusual hours. She hadn’t lost that, either.

I let myself through the adjoining door to the infirmary. A reassuring beep said Ash’s heartbeat was slow but steady. Song had strapped his wrists and ankles to the table, which seemed like overkill to me, but he _had_ attacked me. She was probably just taking precautions.

Covered by the sheet, his pink hair tangled on the pillow and his makeup smudged, he looked nothing like the bratty pet who’d seduced me at the bar.

Young, but I’d known that. Beautiful, even with his makeup in disarray.

But Song was right. I knew nothing about him, not really. I’d acted without thinking, because the alternative—leaving him with the Korl—had been intolerable.

_What did you do?_

I had no idea, but fuck if I was going to regret it.


	4. Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash finds himself on a ship.

I woke in a white room with my arms and legs bound to a medical table.

Panic kicked in and I pulled against the restraints. It didn’t matter that it was pointless, that helplessness had been bored into my brain since I was a child. It was still my immediate response they’d never been able to school out of me.

“It’s all right.” A human came into view. Female. I struggled harder. “I’m going to release you, but I ask that you please stay on the table. No one is going to hurt you. I only restrained you for your safety.”

“Let me go.” I hated the keening, needy sound in my voice. “Please.”

“Promise me you won’t try to get up.”

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. “I promise.” I was already in full-on panic mode. At the facility they kept me bound in the dark for hours to try to break me of it, but it still triggered, every time.

A loud beeping sound broke through my haze. “Shit. Your heartbeat’s through the roof.” Her hands fumbled at the restraints at my wrists. I struggled to stay as still as possible, not wanting to impede her progress as she freed them. My heart pounded in my chest until the pressure on my ankles eased.

I repressed my immediate urge to jump off the table to put as much distance between us as possible. If I did, she’d just drag me back and restrain me again, and maybe she wouldn’t release me this time.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the restraints would be a trigger.”

Now that my heart wasn’t about to explode, I glanced over at her. She was shorter than I was, with straight dark hair pulled back into a knot. She wore a long white coat, which was all too familiar to me in my years at the facility, and not as comforting as she might have thought.

 “I removed your collar and your chastity device.” She gestured to a tall metal table where I saw the leather collar and cage. I put my hand to my throat reflexively, and it came away greasy. “That’s just a salve. You had some chafing.”

I dropped my hand. A thin sheet covered me, and I realized I was naked underneath. “Where are my clothes?”

“They’re here. I’ll return everything to you, once we have you situated.” Her smile faded when I didn’t smile back.

 _Situated_. “What does that mean?”

“Just that I want to keep you here another night for observation. I’m not familiar with Faenon physiology and I want to make sure you don’t have any adverse effects from the sedative.”

I realized this lab must be on Ryder’s ship, and if I’d been knocked out for several hours, that meant—

I sat up, ignoring her alarmed protest. “Did we already leave the station? How far are we out?”

“Yes, about eight hours.” She frowned at the rapid beeping of my skyrocketing heartbeat.

“We have to go back.” I couldn’t believe how thoroughly fucked everything was. All because some ship’s captain had a good fuck and felt sorry for me.

“Ash. Can I call you Ash?”

I stared at her. “What else would you call me?”

“I’m Nari. Or you can call me Doctor Song, if you prefer.” I didn’t answer. “Ash, we’re not going back.”

I lay back on the table as my stomach bottomed out. That was it. It was done.

“I’ve been evaluating your chip,” she said, oblivious to—or politely ignoring—my reaction. “I’m hoping you can help me with a few things.”

She pulled down a monitor suspended from the ceiling. I was familiar enough with the readout, though the training facility doctors didn’t like thinking we were smart enough to understand it.

“I know what most of this is,” she said, pointing out my vitals. “But here, this hormone regulator. It seems to be deliberately activating certain hormones and suppressing others. I don’t understand what function it serves.”

I flushed. Even though it was natural behavior for _faenon_ , the Korl had managed to twist it into something prurient. “About every twenty-five of your standard days, we go into heat at the peak of fertility.”

“And your chip regulates that?”

“It…prolongs it. Keeps it permanently active.”

She frowned. “So you’re always in a heat cycle?”

I turned my head from the monitor. “Keeps us permanently horny, to distract us from trying to rebel. That’s the theory, anyway.”

Her jaw tightened. I could tell she was shocked, but she just asked, “What about the hormones it’s suppressing?”

“We’re kept infertile until we’re no longer useful as pets. Then the block is lifted and we’re sent to breeding farms.”

“Breeding farms.” Her hand twitched in front of the monitor.

I shrugged. I had another five or six years left as a pet before my value diminished and I’d be sent to breed. As a _faenon_ you learned to live day by day. It wasn’t something I’d lingered on.

“Hey, Doc. Ash.”

Ryder had entered the room. He approached the bed, a neutral look on his face. I didn’t know what that meant. I hadn’t exactly been welcoming the last time we’d seen each other.

“We’re just finishing up,” Dr. Song said. “I was about to tell Ash that I don’t have the facilities to modify his chip. We’ll need to stop at a Korl medical center.”

I managed to school my reaction. If they took me to a medical facility, I could get word to Belar. There were always _faenon_ working at the centers.

Song consulted her data pad. “Traiad has a training center with a medical facility.”

“That’s almost two weeks away. A Company facility will be closer.”

“But it isn’t guaranteed to have what we need.”

I held my breath, waiting, until Ryder finally said, “I’ll tell Hyo to set a course.”

“Just a moment.” Dr. Song turned to me. “I realized I didn’t ask. Do you want the regulator lifted?”

I stared at her. I’d never thought about not being in heat all the time. I’d been like this since my first heat cycle started. I hadn’t gone a day since without the insistent, pervasive need for some form of sexual contact.

“Yes,” I said.

She relaxed. “All right.”

Ryder said, “I’d like to talk to Ash alone.”

“That’s up to Ash, and only for a few minutes. He needs to rest.” She flushed slightly with the typical discomfort of humans when presented with _faenon_. “Ash, is there a pronoun you’d like us to use? I’m afraid there’s no non-gendered form in Standard.”

“‘He’ is fine.” It wasn’t a real substitute, but as long as they didn’t call me _it_ , I could handle it. “And, uh, it’s okay for him to stay.”

“All right. Just call if you need anything.” She withdrew to an adjoining room out of earshot.

“Hey,” Ryder said quietly. I didn’t respond, though being this close to him triggered my natural heat reaction. It wasn’t exactly something I could help. “Care to tell me what that was all about? You were pretty hell bent on staying with that asshole.”

I shrugged. “Sorry to crush your ego, but you weren’t doing me any favors.”

“Really? Because from what I’ve seen, I did you a massive one.”

He couldn’t know, of course, that he’d just taken away what little I’d been doing to help the _faenon_ fight the Korl. Even if it was pitifully small.

“Look, as far as I’m concerned, you’re free. We’ll take you to Traiad to get anything sorted out you need to, then you’re welcome to stay on the ship, or we’ll drop you off anywhere you want to go.”

I stared at him. For a man with his own ship, he was remarkably naïve. “I don’t have citizenship. I don’t have rights. You can’t set me _free_. I’d be a walking target for any slave catcher looking to make some easy credits.”

I actually managed to stun the arrogant asshole into silence. Finally, he said, “All right, then you can stay on the ship. There’s plenty you can help with. But you’re not…I’m not….That is, I don’t expect any kind of service from you.”

I laughed. He was just so fucking hopeless. “Great. Thanks for that.”

He flushed. I realized that he’d actually thought he was helping me, getting me away from the Korl. They’d taken off the collar and the cage, told me I was _free_ , and that was supposed to solve what, exactly?

“We’ll talk later.”

“Sure.”

He stayed a moment more, then I heard his footsteps leaving, and the whoosh of the automatic door behind him.

***

The doctor grilled me for what felt like hours on _faenon_ biology, and I told her what I knew. Most of our education consisted of gleaning what informational tidbits we could. She meant well, but I didn’t understand most of her terminology, and I wasn’t always successful in my attempts to translate _faenon_ or Korl terms into Standard.

Then I slept again—I hadn’t slept this much in years—and when I woke, Song was with a male about my age, with dark brown skin and a cautiously friendly expression.

“Ash, this is Dakarai. He’s the ship’s engineer.”

Dakarai grinned. “Engineer, mechanic, miracle worker some days. You can call me Dak.”

“I thought he could help you get settled into one of the cabins. You’re about the same size, so he’s donated some clothes for you until you can pick up something at the next commerce planet.”

Dak put a stack of folded clothing on the bed next to me. They politely turned their backs while I pulled a long sleeve shirt from the stack over my head, then swung my legs to the side to step into a soft pair of drawstring pants.

“Unfortunately his shoes won’t fit, so you can either wear your own or deal with hospital slippers for a while.” Song handed me a pair of soft blue slippers in some synthetic material. They didn’t have much sole, but were better than the too-tight heels Tal had put me in. I put them on.

“This way,” Dak said helpfully, and I picked up the rest of the clothing and followed him out of the infirmary.

“How big is this ship?” I asked, looking around. It had been hard to tell when the ship had been docked. I’d only gotten a view of the cargo bay, which was smaller than Tal’s.

“Three decks, ten cabins, a mess hall, and a class two engine. Not big, but big enough. Have you done a lot of space travel?”

“Just in the last year. My master, Tal, bought me from my old master a year ago. Before that I was on the Korl home planet.”

Dak’s face darkened. “You don’t have to call him that.”

“What?”

“Master.”

I shrugged. “That’s what he was.”

Dak didn’t pursue it, thankfully. “In here.” He stopped in front of a metal door and pressed a code into the panel next to it. The door slid open. “You can change the code, but fair warning, there’s an emergency override.”

I followed him inside. The cabin was small but comfortable, in shades of grey and blue. A bed in the center, a built-in couch along one wall, and a desk with a computer console on the other. It was more space than I’d ever been given before. Dak nodded at the narrow door next to the bed. “That leads to the bathroom.”

I put the stack of clothing on the bed. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

“There’s food in the mess hall. MREs. Not great, but you get used to them. The mess hall’s one deck up; you can’t miss it. We work on a twenty-four hour cycle and don’t really have set meal times. We eat when we get the chance. But there’s usually one of us in there at any given time.”

I processed the information.

Dak went over to the desk and turned on the console. “You can communicate to any one of us through this.” He pushed a button on the screen, and Ryder’s voice came through the speakers.

“Ash?”

“No, it’s Dak. Just showing Ash the ropes.”

As pissed off as I was with Ryder, his voice still sent a shiver down my spine.

“Oh. Ash, come up to the mess hall when you’ve settled in.” He disconnected.

“This one’s me.” Dak pointed to the screen. “If you want, I can come by later to take you up to the mess hall.”

“Sure.” I’d say anything at this point for a few minutes alone.

“Okay.” He eyed me uncertainly. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m good. Uh, thank you.”

“Sure. Just don’t hesitate to ping me if you need anything.”

He moved to the door and I followed him, relaxing only when the door closed behind him.

I hit the red symbol on the panel to lock the door, then retreated to the bed, pressing my back against the wall and pulling my knees up to my chest.

That was where Ryder found me.

“Ash.” I hadn’t heard him come in. My eyelids were oddly heavy. My knees were stiff. “Are you all right?”

“What?” My voice sounded weird. “You said to come up to the mess hall when I was ready.”

“That was three hours ago. Dak’s been calling you. I’ve been calling you.” I looked over at the console and saw it blinking. “Have you been sitting here the whole time?”

I’d lost time before, but it had always been a conscious elision. I’d never just…turned off before. “I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not.” Ryder sat on the edge of the bed. “Look, you don’t have to leave this room if you don’t want to. But you’ve got to be hungry. There’s no one in the mess hall now. We can go up, get you something to eat, come back down again.”

“All right.” I unfolded my legs. Ryder stood and held out a hand to help me up. I took it, legs shaky as I went with him to the door. He hadn’t let go of my hand, and even though it made me feel like a child again—

_when have you ever been a child?_

—I kept hold of it as he led me to the lift and it carried us up.

The mess hall was just past the lift entrance. It was more like a lounge than the cafeteria-style eating area I was used to from the facility. There’d been no common space in Tal’s ship; I’d rarely been permitted to leave his cabin, anyway.

Ryder sat me down at one of the tables and released my hand. I folded it obediently with the other in my lap like they’d taught us in training.

A few moments later he put a tray with some kind of reconstituted meat and vegetables in front of me. “You can eat,” he said, when I made no motion to.

I picked up the fork on the tray obediently and began to eat.

Ryder sat down across the table. “Do you need to see Doctor Song for anything? Pain meds?”

“No, Master.”

He sucked in a breath. “Don’t call me that.”

I put down the fork. My hand shook. “I know. I just….” I put a hand to my temple. I was still shaken from losing all of that time. I couldn’t get a grip on where I was or who I was. Everything was running together.

“Maybe I should take you back to the infirmary.”

“I’m all right.” I steadied my hand with an effort, picked up the fork again, and began to eat. The food was probably nutritious and filling, but it tasted like sawdust and it was an effort getting it down.

“Okay.” He didn’t look convinced, but he waited patiently for me to finish.

When I was done, he stood and took the tray to the disposal. “We can hang out here if you like. If you don’t want to go back to your cabin yet.”

“No, I’d like to go back.” I wanted the security of close walls around me.

“All right,” he said, but he didn’t exactly look happy about it.

When we got back to my cabin, he opened the door for me but stayed outside as I walked in. “Look, you can keep the door locked, but I need you to check in with me or Song every hour. Let one of us know before you go to sleep, and then check in as soon as you wake up.”

I’d certainly had to do worse. And it was better than being sent back to the infirmary. Not that Song was bad, but it reminded me too much of spending time in Korl medical centers. “All right.”

“I’m serious, Ash.”

He sounded so intent that I smiled, starting to feel a little more like myself. The food had helped too, as awful as it was. “I got it. Check in every hour.”

“Good.” He hesitated, and I couldn’t help wanting him to stay, as much as I wanted to be alone. The food had brought other parts of me to life again, and I was acutely aware I’d gone nearly twenty-four hours without fucking.

His eyes darkened as if reading the direction of my thoughts, and for a hopeful second I thought he’d take me up on my silent offer. But then he cleared his throat and stepped back.

“Good night, Ash.”

***

The next two days I stayed in my cabin, venturing out to eat only when Dak came by to check on me. I met the other two members of the crew—Ell and Hyo, who were clearly sleeping together despite the difference in their ages. Everyone was polite and friendly, and acted like any wrong word or movement might break me.

I couldn’t really blame them.

I spent a lot of time on the computer looking through news sources I’d always been denied before, but there was nothing on the Korl, or anything else that might be helpful. Not that I knew what I was looking for. I was used to seeing the world through a shattered lens, never getting the full picture.

I didn’t dare log into the secure server. By now, Belar would know my chip had been transferred, and protocol dictated radio silence for now.

It wasn’t long before boredom set in. By the third day, I was also really fucking horny.

I hadn’t seen much of Ryder. By coincidence or design, I didn’t know. The few times I had seen him, he’d been very hands-off.

But I knew what cabin was his. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I found myself in front of it at the time the crew usually retired.

I stood there a while before pressing the button to request entry. I wasn’t afraid he’d say yes, I was afraid he’d say no.

If he said no, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

The door opened a moment later, and Ryder stood there half-dressed, pants still on but shirt already discarded. My groin and pussy ached at the sight of him. I’d lost the one advantage of the cage, in that I couldn’t hide that I was hard.

“Ash,” he said neutrally.

“Can I come in?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

I closed my eyes. Of course he knew why I was there. I was probably the perfect picture of pathetic desperation. No wonder the Korl called us sluts.

“Please.”

He hesitated a moment more, then stepped back to let me enter.

His cabin was only slightly larger than mine. “You knew I’d come by.”

“I was…prepared for it. Song told me the Korl were keeping you in permanent heat.”

Even the Standard word for it, _heat_ , sounded animalistic. At the center they used to call us cats in heat. They’d turned us into this, then told us daily what an inferior species we were, that we were aberrations of nature because we weren’t gendered like them.

 _That’s not who you are_.

“You’re going to say no.”

Ryder ran a hand through his hair. His wry mouth turned down unhappily. “I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

I was ashamed of how much I wanted him, but I couldn’t stop needing it.

“Ash.” He stepped forward, seeing my distress. “What do you need?”

“I need you to fuck me.”

“I don’t know that I can do that.”

I let out a shaky breath. “You were fine with it on the commerce station.”

“I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Will you sit down?”

“No, it’s all right. I should be—”

“Ash.” Ryder took another step forward, and I felt his hand circle my wrist. He blew out a breath, and I averted my eyes so I couldn’t see his expression. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

“Take your clothes off and turn to face the wall.”

My breath caught and I nearly choked out a sob. My hands shook on the thin cloth of my shirt and pants, but he’d released my wrist and stepped back, not helping.

I got my shirt and pants off in lightning speed, and turned trembling to the wall.

I felt the warmth of his hand on the small of my back, steadying me. A keening sound I couldn’t stop in time came from the back of my throat.  

“Hands on the wall. Either side of your head.”

I put my hands where he directed. The smooth wall of the cabin was cool on my overheated skin.

“Good. Stay there.”

I focused on breathing as I heard him get something from a drawer on the other side of the room. When he came back, I’d almost gotten myself back under control.

“Legs wider.” He tapped my thigh.

I spread my legs wider.

And felt something cool and hard at the entrance to my pussy. “What is that?”

“No questions.” He pressed the object in. It slid in easily enough, though it was big, and the bottom of it was curved, pressing against my clit.

Then it began to vibrate.

I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the wall. Sensation chased after sensation. Pleasure ripped down my spine. It was too much and not enough. I’d gone too long without, and it wasn’t more than a few heartbeats before my pussy clenched in orgasm.

“Ryder,” I choked out, then felt his arm around my waist and his bare chest pressed against my back. My cock was still hard, despite the pressure on my prostate and the pleasure radiating from my pussy. I usually needed direct stimulation to come.

“It’s all right. We’re going to do this for a while.” His hand crept lower to cup my balls. “Can you shoot from this?”

I shook my head. “I need you to—”

“Shh.” He stroked upward, his fist engulfing my cock.

I made a desperate sound. He cranked up the vibration and a second orgasm hit me. I was still sensitive from the first one. Then I felt his hand on my balls, squeezing gently.

I needed his cock in me, and instead he was giving me this torture. He moved from my balls back to my shaft, stroking up in a smooth motion.

“Are you seriously not going to fuck me?”

He laughed softly. “There’s the brat.”

I craned my neck around to look at him. “What?”

He tugged my hair. “I knew he was still in there somewhere.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Is this where you spank me again?”

“Do you want me to spank you?”

I shrugged. It had been hot in the moment, and I wouldn’t be averse to it again, but right now I just needed his cock in me. “I’d prefer it if you fucked me.”

“What if I wanted you to blow me instead?”

I turned around and was on my knees so fast he stumbled back a step. “Ash, I wasn’t seriously—”

I was already working on his pants, and had his dick out a moment later. I’d been wanting to get my lips on his cock since that night. He certainly couldn’t hide that he was into this, and his big cock was beautifully hard.

“You don’t have to—” he said, but I’d already swallowed him down. A beat later, his murmured, “Jesus,” had me smiling around his thick length.

I liked giving head probably more than I should, considering what they put us through in training, and I liked it especially like this, with Ryder’s hand resting lightly on my head, not controlling or directing but there. My first master had been a little like that—not all Korl were monsters—and it was only Tal’s mean streak that had stripped all enjoyment of sex I could have had with him.

“Ash, I’m going to—”

I pulled off him so rapidly his cock made a popping sound. “Not before you fuck me.”

“You really are a brat,” he said, tugging me up by my hair and shocking me utterly in the next moment by kissing me.

Korl didn’t kiss but _faenon_ did, and for a second I was back in the center, stealing  forbidden kisses in the dark.

He must have noticed I wasn’t kissing back, because he pulled away a moment later. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“It’s all right.” I wet my lips. “It’s, uh, okay if you want to do that.”

He cupped my jaw and brushed his thumb across my lips. “You really want me to fuck you?”

“Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”

He seemed to consider a moment, then stung my ass with a swift hard swat. “On the bed. Hands and knees.”

Fucking _finally_. I scrambled over to the bed and got in position, arms trembling in anticipation.

He took his time kicking his pants off, then I felt the thin mattress dip with his weight and his heavy hand on my hip. He tugged on the dildo and I almost came again as it slid down the sensitive walls of my pussy and bumped my clit on the way out.

“Please.”

He dropped a kiss on my shoulder—at least that’s what I thought it was. I was too high in heat to process the sensation before he spread my thighs and eased himself into my wet and raw pussy. I was so sensitive that every inch was a new level of sweet torture.

He cupped my balls as he moved slowly in and out of me, angling his dick to nudge my prostate. I groaned and pushed back on him.

“Stay still,” he said sharply, and pinched one of my nipples.

I tried to breathe and stay still. That tone in his voice made me want to roll over and let him do whatever he wanted to me. Fuck me, smack my ass red. Tie my wrists and ankles so I couldn’t move. Thinking about it didn’t set off a panic attack, but my heart began to beat faster.

He was still fucking me, long and slow and deep, stroking my cock at the same time. I was so close to orgasm it hurt, but my cock had been caged so long its wires were crossed, and I couldn’t seem to come.

“I can’t.”

He stopped moving in me, hearing the frustration in my voice. “Can’t what?”

“Can’t _come_.” I’d shot before from less stimulation than this. Clearly Tal had broken me, that fucker.

He pulled us up so I was in his lap, his cock still deep inside me. “Give me your wrists.”

My heart started thumping. “What?”

“Put your hands together.” When I obeyed, he reached around to enclose my wrists in his big hand. I tried to pull away, but he held them fast. My heart started racing, but the words stuck in my throat. I didn’t want him to release my wrists.

His other hand stroked my cock in an intent rhythm. I couldn’t move my hands. He had me pinned so I could barely move my legs. I was being held there, fucked and helpless.

His fingers snaked down to brush my clit and my pussy clenched greedily; no problems there, though I was so sensitive any touch was torture. Then back to my balls and cock. “You can come.”

“I can’t.”

“Come, Ash.”

My balls tightened and I shouted as my cock began to shoot in his hand, spurting come all over the sheets. It was the first orgasm I’d had from my dick since Tal had locked it up, and for a second I blacked out from the intensity of it.

Ryder gave my wrists a squeeze and let them go.

I was exhausted and completely fucked out. I hadn’t even realized he’d come too until I felt his cock soften and slip out of me. He pulled us down to the bed, spooning me easily.

He brushed my hair back from my face rather sweetly. “I don’t know that this is such a good idea.”

“Mm.” It was a struggle to form the words; I just wanted to sleep. I hadn’t been so well fucked since, well, the last time he’d fucked me. Whatever his faults, Ryder knew what he was doing in the sack. “It felt pretty great to me.”

His lips moved against the back of my head in a smile. “I’m glad to hear it. But how am I supposed to know if this is what you really want?”

I stiffened. I’d hoped Ryder of all people wouldn’t overthink this. At the station, he’d looked at me like I was a person, not some broken thing. He knew too much about me now to ever get that back.

There was no help for it. Once we got to Traiad, I’d hear from Belar with new orders.

And if those orders meant spying on my new captain?

All the more reason not to get attached.


	5. Ryder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash goes shopping.

“I don’t have money to pay for any of this,” Ash said, looking over the sea of shops flanking the commercial center of Nayera. I’d picked this city for a pit stop because it was a small enough to be light on trade tariffs and was in the southern hemisphere of the old Earth colony of Luna Five, which had an overabundance of cerium. There were a few commerce planets on the way to Traiad where I could unload cerium easily.

Nayera also had the benefit of good-sized fashion industry that was neither excessively expensive nor limited in its options. Ash was still wearing his borrowed clothes from Dak and those god-awful slippers. Serviceable enough for the ship, but he needed his own clothes.

“Everyone on the ship gets a cut of our trade deals and other jobs. I’m giving you yours upfront on credit.” I handed him a commerce chip and a communicator.

I didn’t tell him his cut was currently coming out of mine—I wasn’t going to penalize the others for adding a new crew member without them having a say. It was worth it to watch Ash eye the vast variety of style and material Nayera had to offer with surprise and interest. He’d been adjusting okay so far, at least from what I could see myself and glean from the other crew members, but he was still a mystery to me in a lot of ways.

Ash fumbled with the communicator until it was secured in his ear, and eyed the commerce chip dubiously. I realized he’d probably never had money of his own to spend how he wished. “I don’t know where to start.”

I was the last person to ask for fashion advice, which is why I’d recruited Ell.

“Let’s start there,” she said, pointing to a small shop not as showy as the rest, but with a few attractive items out for display.

Ell was slightly taller than Ash, but they had a similar shape—Ell had a little more on the top end than Ash, but they both had slim hips and long legs, and roughly the same shoulder width.

Besides, I’d never known anyone as particular about her clothes as Ell.

I hung back from entering the store with them, and connected to Hyo.

“Have you made contact yet?” Hyo asked in my ear.

“Not yet. The seller’s a few klicks outside the city, so I’ll arrange the buy with his agent here. Do you need anything while we’re here?”

“Do they have those little almond cakes like the planet where we picked up the spice?”

I grinned. “I don’t know if there are any Shijan bakers here, but I’ll check. The food market’s nearby, and Ell’s teaching Ash how to spend all his money on clothes.”

“You know how dangerous that is, right?” she said dryly.

She put up a good front, but the two of them had been joined at the hip for a year now, and weren’t fooling any of us. “Better make room in your closet.”

She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “I’ve got a short list of planets near Traiad where we can unload the cerium, but ask for at least five thousand k’s or else it won’t be worth our while.”

“Roger that,” I said, and ended the connection.

In the shop, Ell was holding up a sleeveless teal tunic and trying to convince Ash to try it on. I realized most of the shop catered to women, and wondered how Ash dealt with gendered clothing. He glanced over at me, looking a little uncomfortable but also intrigued, and took the tunic and a pair of thin tight pants the same color from her, disappearing into the dressing room.

“I’m heading to the finance district to meet with the cerium agent, then picking up some almond cakes for your girlfriend. Do you need anything?”

Ell was a little more relaxed about acknowledging her relationship with Hyo. “You didn’t tell her I was shopping, did you?”

“You’ll have to work that out with her on your own. Are you okay with Ash for a couple of hours?”

“Sure,” she said. “We’ll meet you back at the ship when we’re done.”

Ash took the opportunity to come out of the dressing room, and my reply died in my throat. The tunic was long and fitted, and barely gaped at all in front. The color brought out the green of his eyes. The pants clung to the contours of his legs like a second skin. He didn’t look female, and he didn’t look male. My brain struggled with the contradiction, then gave up. It was getting easier to see Ash though non-binary eyes.

He eyed us uncertainly. “Does it look all right?” He addressed the question to Ell, but the flick of his eyes included me as well.

“You look fantastic,” Ell said with satisfaction. “I knew it would be perfect for you.”

“Yeah,” I managed, past the thudding in my chest and tightening in my groin. I was too old to be reacting like a teenager with a first crush. “You look great.”

He fingered the tunic like he was still trying to decide.

“Ell, you talk him into it. I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

I left them with my heart still thudding in my chest and my pants straining across the front, glad that I had a few blocks to walk to the finance district. Maybe I could get back to acting like a captain and not a love-sick sod.

 _Get a grip, Ryder. You’ve known him all of a week_.

I found the agent’s office and we negotiated a while, finally settling on six k’s to be picked up in the morning. I even found a Shijan bakery who had Hyo’s almond cakes, and by the time I headed back in the direction of the ship, the sun was descending and the city’s inhabitants were beginning to gather near the restaurants I passed.

It gave me an idea. I called Ell, not sure if Ash was comfortable enough with the communicator yet. “Have you two already gone back to the ship?”

“No, we’re still at the salon.”

 _Salon?_ “Oh. Uh, any interest in grabbing dinner here?”

“Hang on, let me ask Ash.” She muted her communicator. I paced a little at the throughway corner. A few motorized vehicles passed by, but the place was mostly dominated by pedestrians.

“Ash says yes, but I’m going to get mine to go to take back for me and Hyo. Where should we meet you?”

I checked my data pad for the coordinates and rattled off the address.

In a way I was glad Ell was passing on dinner, and in a way I was nervous. _It’s not a date_. Ash was part of the crew now. We were having dinner to get know each other better outside the bedroom, which maybe was the opposite of how things usually progressed, but we weren’t exactly the poster children for standard relationships.

Hell, who was I kidding. Of course it was a date.

When I saw them weaving through the crowd toward me burdened down by shopping bags, my heart did that thudding thing again.

Ash had changed into the teal tunic and pants, and paired it with soft suede boots with a bit of a chunky heel. He’d gotten rid of the pink dye in his hair, and it was now a soft silver-blond cut in layers to his chin, the back of it just brushing his collar.

Fuck, he was beautiful.

Whatever was in my expression made him duck his head self-consciously. In truth I preferred the brat, but shy Ash was also doing a number on my libido.

“Is this where you’re eating?” Ell asked, glancing behind me.

I hadn’t even given thought to what restaurant to pick. The one we were in front of seemed suitable enough, with a sign in Standard advertising a back garden. “Sure.”

It was darker inside, lit by floating globes hovering just above head-height. Ell left us at the greeter’s station. “I’ll order here,” she said, looking over the menu in Standard next to the one in the Nayera’s indigenous language. “Ash, I can take your stuff back to the ship. Oh, and those cakes for Hyo if you found them, Ryder.”

Ash handed her his bags, and I gave her the bag from the bakery. “Uh, thanks. For everything.” He wiped his free hands nervously on his tunic.

“You sure you don’t need help carrying everything back?” I asked.

“There’s a shuttle back to the space port not far from here. You two go on.” She pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear and studied the menu.

I turned to Ash, who eyed me uncertainly. “Do you want to sit in the garden?”

“All right.” He glanced around like he was feeling out of place, and without thinking, I reached for his hand.

He took it after a moment’s hesitation. His hand was cool and dry in mine, and I hoped my palm wasn’t sweaty.

The back garden was a small space with a trellis overhead and a few tables scattered around a cobblestone floor. Potted plants provided a rainbow mix of colors. I released Ash’s hand and took a seat at one of the empty tables. The menus were already at the table on digital pads, so ordering must be automated.

I clicked over to the Standard version of the menu, and saw Ash do the same, his fingers fumbling a little on the pad.

“I like your hair,” I said, hoping that didn’t come out as awkwardly as I feared.

Ash touched the side of his head. “I haven’t had it undyed in a while.”

“It suits you. Did you, uh, find everything you needed?”

“Yes, thank you.” He put the data pad down. “I don’t know what any of this is.”

Oh. “What do you like to eat?”

He bit his lip. “I think they’re staring at me.”

I glanced over at the couple who had just sat down at the table across the garden from us. They’d thrown us a glance, but nothing to raise my hackles. “Maybe they’ve never seen a Faenon.”

Ash snorted. “Or maybe they’re wondering why you brought a pet out in public.”

“You’re not a pet.”

“All _faenon_ are pets.”

Maybe this had been a bad idea. “Do you want to leave?”

“No.” Ash played with the fabric of the table covering. “You don’t have to court me, you know.”

My stomach warmed. “Maybe I like going to dinner with the person I’m having sex with.”

He grimaced. “All they see is a pet.”

“So? It’s not what I see.” I put the menu down. “I’m inclined to trust the chef and go with their specialty. All right?”

He shrugged. “All right.”

I put in the order, adding a bottle of a mildly fermented drink made from a local berry that would hopefully take some of the edge off the evening while still keeping us alert. I didn’t make it a habit to get drunk on planets I didn’t know well.

Though with Ash’s current mood, maybe that wasn’t a half bad idea.

While we waited for the food, Ash fidgeted on his chair and played with his newly cut hair. I thought about the cocksure pet who’d flirted with me at the bar. “Are you nervous about going to Traiad?”

His hand twitched, and he glanced up at me through long lashes. “I don’t think you realize how it’s going to be there.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

“The Korl don’t see us as people. They’ll deal with you as my owner, but to them I’m not much more than a dog.”

“I’m not your owner.”

“Legally, you are.”

My hand tightened reflexively. “I don’t care what a data record says. It doesn’t define who we are.”

Ash shrugged. “That’s a nice sentiment, but the ones who write the laws define how things are, not the other way around.”

That was a rather pessimistic view of things, though I supposed if I’d been through what Ash had, I’d feel like the universe had let me down, too. “So change the law. Petition to have the _faenon_ status changed.”

“To who? The Commerce Council? _Faenon_ trafficking is a lucrative business. Why would they give up their cut?”

The kid wasn’t wrong. Still, not even the Commerce Council was made up entirely of immoral dicks. “It doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”

Ash’s face shuttered. I wondered if it was something I’d said. Our food and drink took that moment to arrive in the hands of a Nayeran who placed it delicately in front of us.

I poured us each a glass from the bottle she’d left. The chef’s specialty was a large stew of assorted meat and vegetables, eaten with soft leavened bread. Some of the spice smells coming from it were a bit foreign, but you got used to eating weird shit while space traveling.

Ash seemed to enjoy it well enough, and after the first bite where my tongue wasn’t quite so sure, it adapted and the next bite was better. I tried a sip of the fermented drink. It was a bit like watered wine, a bit like rum.

I was full and only a little bit tipsy by the time we finished and paid. The restaurant was packed when we left, and the throughways were twice as full as they’d been during the day. Apparently the city had a happening night life.

“Do you want to take the shuttle back or walk?”

Ash shrugged. “We can walk.”

The night was mildly cool and the planet’s two moons cast a soft silvery glow over everything. I wanted to take his hand again, but was starting to second guess my instincts. Would he see it as a sign of ownership? Would he feel obligated to take it, even if he didn’t want to?

So I kept my hands at my side, even as I itched to touch him.

“What business are you in, exactly?” Ash asked as we walked along the thoroughfare.

I welcomed the switch to a safer topic. “Mostly trade. There’s a buyer for everything. With a decent ship and crew, it’s a living.”

“Do you do much business with the Korl?”

It was a natural question, but something in his diffidence made me glance over at him. I saw he was holding his upper arms like he was cold, and I shrugged my worn leather coat off and handed it to him. He looked confused a moment, then put it on.

“Some. They’re buyers like anyone else.” I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to deal with them in the future, though. “I stick to mostly Apeiron sector planets, though. There’s risk in branching out too far.” Though usually more coin out of the eyes of the Commerce Council. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious. I was only with Tal for a year, and before that I was on the Korl home planet. We’re not often exposed to the outside world.”

“You seem to know enough about how it works. At least the seedier parts of it.”

He flushed a little, though the night was cool. “It’s not so easy for us to escape knowing.”

“I guess not.” We walked a few minutes in silence. “I think the Faenon would find some allies out there willing to help.”

Ash huddled into my jacket. “Most species are concerned with their own problems. We’re not the only ones powerless to protest.”

That was for fucking sure.

We reached the space port and checked in, then took a shuttle to the ship. Once inside, I hesitated at my cabin door.

“Can I come in?” he asked, saving me another cycle of internal questioning on whether to ask him. Song’s lecture and Ash’s mixed signals had me tied up in loops. But here, at least, we understood one another.

I keyed in my passcode and stepped back to let him enter.

When the door closed behind us, Ash shrugged out of my coat and handed it to me. “We’re going to do this, right? You didn’t just invite me in for a drink?”

“I’m pretty sure you invited yourself.” I hung the coat on the hook next to the closet. “And it depends. Are you planning to behave yourself?”

He leaned back against the door. “For someone with a hangup about ownership, you sure like to tell me what to do when it comes to sex.”

“It’s not the same thing at all.”

“What is it, then?”

“I like telling you what to do because you like doing it.” I took a small package from my bag. “I picked up something while I was waiting for you.”

Ash’s eyes widened when I unwrapped the soft leather wrist cuffs I’d detoured for after meeting with the cerium agent. Good thing kink was pretty much universal across planets.

He wet his lips. “What is that?”

“It’s a quick release binding. Here, put them on me.”

I held it out along with my wrists. He took it from me, fingering the leather. I could tell he was excited by his shallow breathing, but I knew it was from an equal amount of alarm.

I held my wrists together and offered them to him.

He hesitated but then fastened the leather straps around my wrists, fumbling only a little at the unfamiliar fastening. When he was done, I tried to pull my wrists apart, straining the leather.

“See? Can’t get them off.” I tilted my wrists up and showed him the small strip of leather sticking out. I got my fingers on it easily and pulled. The leather cuffs released and fell to the floor.

I picked them up. “Do you want me to put them on you?”

He was in flight or fight mode, or maybe just flight. The cuffs seemed to have robbed him of speech. He wet his lips again, then nodded.

I put the cuffs on him carefully, making sure he had full access to the release strap. His hands shook under mine. When they were on he instinctively pulled against them.

“I can’t.”

“Pull the strap,” I said.

“No,” he said, screwing his eyes shut. The pulse at his throat beat wildly. He held his wrists to his chest as if trying to ward me off with them.

Maybe this had been a terrible idea. Maybe I was fucking with his head like Song had warned me about.

I stepped forward and slid my hand under his tunic, tracing the contour of his thigh encased in the soft material of the pants. They were stretchy and pulled down over his hips easily.

I dipped my hand inside, palming his dick and reaching lower to the folds of his pussy. “God, you’re wet.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat. I found his clit and rubbed. His wrists strained the leather cuffs.

“Put them above your head.”

His breath was harsh between us. “Make me.”

I grinned and pinched his clit. “You like it even better that way, don’t you.”

His eyes were heavy-lidded. His lips were wet and red where he’d bitten them. I raised his wrists above his head, flattening them against the door. “You’re going to come like this, knowing you could free yourself and chose not to.”

He cried out and came, wetness soaking my hand. His clit shuddered under my fingers.

Fucking unbelievable, how quickly he could come.

I slid his pants the rest of the way down as he toed off his boots. He plucked at his tunic. “I don’t want to ruin it,” he said raspily.

“Okay. I’m going to take the cuffs off.” He murmured a protest. “Just for a minute.”

He let me take his wrists and gently unfasten the cuffs, then I helped him pull the tunic over his head and folded it on top of his pants on my desk chair. His skin was flushed and his dick was hard.

“Stroke yourself.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“Get yourself off or you don’t get these back.” I shook the wrist cuffs at him.

His eyes narrowed but he reached down to palm his dick, cupping his balls then stroking upward in a lazy motion. I watched him as I shrugged my own clothes off, and was pleased to see him watching me back.

He’d said it was okay for me to kiss him, so once I was as naked as he was, I cupped his face and kissed him.

He was startled at first then tentatively kissed me back. He had a warm sweet mouth and wasn’t afraid to go tongue to tongue. I wrapped my hand in that silky white blond hair of his, and when he nipped my lip I tugged his head back.

“You’ve got some teeth on you.”

“Mm,” he murmured, and leaned back into the kiss.

It was as intoxicating as fucking him. But I was more than ready to do the latter. I angled us over to the bed and pulled him down to straddle me.

“Can you ride me with these on?” I held up the wrist cuffs. He held out his wrists in answer and I fastened them on. I’d have loved to see them bound behind his back, but I didn’t know if he was ready for that.

He tested the strength as before, then sucked in a breath as I lifted his hips until my cock nudged into his wet pussy. He shifted over me and sank down to my groin, pushing me into his hot, tight depths.

“Fuck.” He was so wet and so fucking tight. He rocked forward and my balls tightened. My mind raced, trying to land on something to keep me from coming. I squeezed his dick. “Keep stroking yourself.”

It was awkward with his wrists bound, but he managed to get an angle on his dick and stroked up. He hissed when I squeezed his balls. “Slow it down.”

He glared at me. “I thought you wanted me to get myself off.”

“I do, but I want you to do it slowly.”

He muttered something under his breath that I was sure was uncomplimentary, but he slowed the rhythm of his hand on his dick.

I reached between us to thumb his clit. “Have you ever come in both places at once?”

“What?” He glanced down at me distractedly. I knew it was torture having to take his time for once. “Oh. Yeah, I mean, it happens. I can’t really control it.”

“Tell me when you’re close,” I said, nodding at his dick.

I rocked up into him. His clit was a throbbing, swollen nub. He moved his hips and started to stroke himself faster. “I’m close.”

“Okay, do it. Make yourself come.”

His breathing quickened. A few more hard strokes and his cock began to pulse. I rubbed his clit in a circular motion until he cried out, pussy tightening around me as his seed spilled out onto my stomach.

All those muscles clenching was enough to send me over the edge too, and I grabbed his hips and thrust up mindlessly until the release had me seeing stars.

He collapsed on top of me and I fumbled at the wrist cuffs, dropping them to the side of the bed. I rolled us over to our sides, facing each other. I was still inside him and starting to soften.

I pushed back the strand of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Did I tell you I liked your hair?”

He snorted. “You don’t have to compliment me.”

“I wasn’t.” I placed a chaste kiss on his lips. “Just telling you how I feel.”

A smile skittered over his face, one of the few I’d seen from him. He closed his eyes and a few minutes later I heard his breath evening out in sleep.

Ah, the young. But I wasn’t far behind him.

***

I was on the bridge with Hyo and Ell when Traiad came into view. It was a water planet with an artificial land mass housing the medical center as well as the rest of its lone city. By the angle of the sun, it was just past dawn there. I’d already contacted the center so they were expecting us.

“We’ll touch down in three hours,” Ell said.

I called Ash’s communicator. He’d taken to helping Dak with the engines, and seemed to want to be useful, which had endeared himself to the crew and somewhat relieved Song, who still asked for updates on him. I’d arranged for her to go down with us to the facility.

“Yeah?” He sounded muffled, which probably meant Dak had him in one of the crawl spaces below the engineering deck.

“We’ve reached Traiad. Ell says we’ll be there in a few hours.”

A small pause. “Okay.”

It was said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, though he’d continued to insist he wanted the procedure. Song was also quietly lobbying for it, though she’d made it clear it was his choice.

The facility had assured me they only needed to hold him for a few hours after the appointment. We’d be in and out by the end of the day. Still, as we neared the planet, I couldn’t help a sense of foreboding.

But how bad could one Korl planet be?


	6. Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for dehumanization and disturbing content.

I had never been to Traiad, but the layout and atmosphere of the medical facility was all too familiar. I wasn’t surprised when the Korl at the front desk ignored me completely and handed Ryder a folded blue medical gown.

“Change it into this then wait for the doctor in the examining room. It’s through there.” She pointed. “Your partner may go in with you.”

“She’s not—” Ryder started, then shut up at a look from Song. I knew she wanted to be in the room with us, but I could have told her it wouldn’t make a difference.

Ryder handed me the medical gown. “Is there a place he can change?”

The Korl looked irritated. “In the examining room.” She pointed again.

Ryder sighed and turned to the door she indicated. I don’t think the Korl even saw me as I passed by. They learned early to treat us as invisible, until that’s what we became to them.

The examining room was as awful as I’d feared. A padded metal chair on a lift was in the center of the room, with all the requisite restraints. Song’s face darkened.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s fine,” I said, pulling my shirt over my head. I undressed quickly while Ryder and Song turned to give me privacy—kind of hilarious on Ryder’s part—and put on the medical gown. It fastened in the front and just covered my ass.

“Are you sure?” Ryder asked quietly.

I wasn’t at all looking forward to a typical Korl examination, but it was a necessary evil to getting word to Belar. And I wanted the hormone suppressor lifted.

Though I was nervous about that, too. I couldn’t imagine not being in heat all the time. And I was getting used to being with Ryder. I wasn’t sure I wanted that to change.

_Focus on what’s important. You’re doing this for the faenon_.

A doctor came in wearing a long white coat and carrying a data pad. Behind him followed a _faenon_ assistant in the familiar blue robes of medical service workers, eyes respectfully downcast.

“Gabriel Ryder,” the doctor said, glancing up at the Ryder. “You’re the owner?”

I didn’t even know Ryder had a first name. Certainly no one called him that on the ship.

I could see Ryder wanting to protest the _owner_ bit, but perhaps remembering our conversation on Nayera, he said, “Yes.”

“I understand you wish to breed your pet.”

A shocked silence. “What?” Ryder asked.

“You asked for the block on its fertility cycle to be lifted. Once the cycle stabilizes, usually in a month or two, it will be available to breed. We don’t typically recommend breeding before twenty-four cycles, but you are, of course, its owner, and free to use it as you will.”

Ryder’s face was white with anger. “His name is Ash, and whatever decisions he makes as far as having children are up to him.”

The doctor shrugged. “I understand our ways are foreign to you. What you do with the pet is up to you.” He turned to the assistant. “Get it on the table.”

_It_ , of course, was me. I crossed to the chair and lifted myself onto it, trying to steady my heartbeat. I’d mentally prepared for this, but the thought of being restrained in the chair had my adrenaline spiking in flight response.

The _faenon_ put my right arm into place on the arm rest, then closed the metal restraints over it, tightening them until I couldn’t move. I caught the other’s eye and was given a small nod in return.

I relaxed, even as my left arm was similarly immobilized. The _faenon_ knew who I was, and was in touch with Belar. We would have opportunity to speak later.

The _faenon_ adjusted the foot rests and fastened metal restraints over my legs as well. “The muzzle, too,” the doctor said.

“What the—” Ryder said, at the same time as Song’s outraged, “Is that really necessary?”

“The pet is unknown to me,” the doctor said calmly. “I won’t risk myself or my assistant.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Perhaps it would be best if you waited in reception. The examination could take a while, and the pet will need time to recover.”

“Never mind,” Ryder said grimly. “We’re done here. Get him out of that thing.”

Alarmed, I said, “No, please. I’m fine. It’s just procedure. The doctor’s right, it will be better if both of you wait outside.”

“I’m not leaving you in here with him.”

If we left now, I’d never get the suppressor lifted, and I’d never find out my next assignment. “Please, Ryder,” I said firmly.

He looked profoundly unhappy. Song’s fury with the doctor was palpable. But if they were going to pretend I had free will and free choice, as they kept proclaiming, they couldn’t exactly take it away when it was inconvenient.

“Let me assure you the pet will receive our most considerate attention,” the doctor said. “We are well trained in caring for them. You have nothing to be concerned about.”

I met Ryder’s gaze, my eyes pleading with him to go. “All right,” Ryder said finally. “We’ll be in reception.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as they left, even as I steeled myself for what was coming next.

When the door closed behind them, the doctor’s expression visibly changed. “Fucking humans,” he said in Korl. “Get the muzzle on,” he snapped.

The _faenon_ hurried to fasten the metal muzzle on me. It covered my nose and mouth, with holes punched in so I could still breathe. I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to speak. Hands lifted my head to strap the muzzle on, then lowered it to fasten a leather strap over my forehead to keep my head immobilized.

The doctor pulled a monitor over. It was similar to the one Song had used, though of course everything was in Korl instead of Standard. It picked up my heart beat and began beeping wildly.

“Muscle relaxant,” he said to the _faenon_ , who jumped forward to hand him a needle.

He plunged it into my neck none too gently, and a moment later a wave of relaxation swept over me. It was like floating on a gentle sea. My heartbeat slowed and steadied.

He punched in a sequence on the chair controls, and my body was lifted then tilted back until it was nearly flat. The foot rests widened until my legs were spread wide and slightly bent at the knee. With my head immobilized, I couldn’t see clearly what the doctor was doing.

I felt the ties on the front of my gown loosen until the cloth parted and slid to my sides. Despite the muscle relaxant, I tensed up.

“Test his sensitivity,” the doctor said to the assistant.

The _faenon_ leaned over me with a metal wand and touched it to my nipple.

A zing of pain swept through me and I gasped as well as I could in the muzzle. I would have arched up but the restraints prevented me from moving. The _faenon_ made a notation in the data pad, then touched it to my other nipple. Another shock of pain.

I knew it was coming, but it was still agony when the wand touched the head of my cock. Wetness sprang involuntarily to the corners of my eyes. The Korl didn’t have to make this process painful, but they seemed to delight in it.

The doctor pulled a stool over from the wall and seated himself in front of my spread knees. “Give me the wand,” he said, and I closed my eyes, steeling myself.

When he touched it to my clit, a white hot burn so intense I barely registered it as pain seized all my limbs in a helpless attempt to escape it. I yelled into the muzzle and shook the chair with the force of my reaction.

When the pain had subsided to an angry throb, the doctor said softly, “You will be still or you will be disciplined.”

I heaved a breath and concentrated on staying still.

“Response is adequate,” the doctor said to the assistant, who notated it in the data pad.

I closed my eyes and focused on breathing in and out. I could get through this.

“Speculum,” the doctor said.

A moment later I felt the blunt pressure of the speculum pushing past the folds of my labia. Cold metal slid in, the pressure increasing as the doctor began to expand the speculum.

A whimper escaped me when pressure crossed over into pain. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through it, but after the shocks from the wand, my pain sensors were on overload.

“Get a sample,” the doctor said, and I felt the _faenon_ ’s hands on my limp cock. First it was locked into a metal contraption to keep it from getting hard, similar to the cage Tal had kept me in. I felt the nudge of metal at the tip, then a slow burning sensation as the hollow sound was inserted.

The _faenon_ had generously applied surgical lube to it, but the sound was large and stretched my urethra painfully. When the doctor inserted the prostate stimulator until it pressed on the wall of the gland, I just felt the hot, tight pressure of needing to come but being unable to with my cock bound in the contraption.

A flip switched, and the stimulator began to vibrate.

I knew what they were doing. They were milking out my seed through the sound. It wasn’t an uncommon procedure, and I’d had it done to me before I’d left the training facility, to ensure I wasn’t defective. But it was still a humiliating process.

I couldn’t help a moan as the prostate stimulator triggered arousal. The doctor chuckled. “They always revert to their nature, don’t they?” he said to his assistant, as if sharing a joke.

“Yes, sir,” the _faenon_ said quietly.

“Horny sluts, the lot of you. It’s why I never took on a pet myself. They take so much training and discipline, I’d spend half my day doing it. Are you getting anything?”

“Yes, sir, a little,” the _faenon_ said. The stimulator was doing its work, and my semen was beginning to ooze into the vial he’d attached to the other end of the sound.

I did my best to block it out. My pussy ached from the wide open speculum, and my prostate was beginning to hurt. Not to mention my dick, which kept trying to get hard in the cage. Metal bands dug into sensitive skin.

“All right, that’s enough,” the doctor said finally. He withdrew the stimulator, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The _faenon_ carefully withdrew the sound and released my dick from the cage. He capped the vial and put in on the table behind him.

“Hand me the other speculum,” the doctor said. “I want to measure his other passage.”

I braced myself for more pain and humiliation as the _faenon_ passed a metal rod to him, and the doctor applied a perfunctory amount of lube before pushing it into my rectum.

It wasn’t as large as the one in my vagina, but I was already stretched wide, and when the doctor began to open it I couldn’t help but keen from the pain.

“You will be quiet, or I will ensure you really feel it,” the doctor said matter-of-factly.

My blood ran cold. He was more than capable of inflicting pain far greater than what I’d been subjected to so far. I choked back the cry lodged in my throat.

_Be quiet and still._

I breathed through the pain as the speculum continued to stretch my anal passage, then blessedly stopped. The doctor noted the measurement of how far he’d been able to stretch me.

“Very well,” he said, putting the data pad aside and standing from the stool. “Let’s see about this chip.”

Finally, the reason I was actually here. I realized he was going to leave the speculums inside me while he adjusted the chip. For a people who had already conquered and subjugated mine, they never seemed to tire of these small cruelties.

He brought the monitor over and tapped a series of symbols. “You may feel a tingling sensation.”

The back of my neck began to tingle, then burn. The sensation traveled down my spine, making me suddenly queasy.

I rode the nausea and discomfort out—I was feeling too much at this point for it to make much difference—until finally the burning sensation stopped. The doctor closed the monitor down. Apparently that was that. “I will inform your master that your normal heat cycle has been restored and that you will be available for breeding. You may feel strange the next few weeks, but remember your training and obey your master.” He took something from his pocket that he set on the table behind him.

My stomach fell. It was a timer, faced away so I couldn’t see how much time he had put on it. This was another favorite disciplinary tool of the trainers.

“You will keep it like this until that goes off,” he said to the _faenon_. “Do not remove any of the equipment or release it from the chair until then, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the _faenon_ whispered.

“You should thank me for reinforcing your discipline,” the doctor said to me, almost angrily.

_They hate us_. I knew that, of course—how could they not? Every time they looked at us they saw themselves, and what they’d done to us.

The doctor left. I focused on breathing through the pain, trying not to wonder how much time the timer held.

The _faenon_ came to stand next to me and gripped my fingers gently. “I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t speak, of course, but I tried to convey my understanding with my eyes.

“Belar knows you have changed masters.” It was spoken quietly enough to escape the watchful eyes and ears of the cameras in the room. I felt something pressed into my hand. “Report as usual.”

I wondered what purpose Belar could have for Ryder’s comings and goings, but I was only one strand in a vast network. Whatever helped the cause, I would do.

I closed my fingers around what felt like a chip. I worked it between my fingers, where it was small enough to fit unseen. The _faenon_ sat with me while the timer ticked down and the pain in my groin and hips subsided to an ache.

I remembered the first time I heard Belar’s name whispered in the training center. We had our own ways of communicating with one another out of the eyes of the Korl, through looks and gestures, but even the idea of Belar gave us the courage to give voice to it. One of my bunkmates was punished severely when caught saying the name, but not even that stopped us. We attributed every small victory to Belar. When the power grid went down in the sector, it was Belar. When the guards whispered about a revolt in one of the other facilities, it had to be Belar.

Still, I had assumed Belar was nothing more than a myth. When I was approached by one of his emissaries in my first few days as Tal’s pet, it was a shock to realize Belar was real. Or that someone, somewhere, intended a destiny for the _faenon_ other than being some Korl’s pet.

I was barely aware of the timer going off and the _faenon_ gently removing the speculums, refastening my gown, and releasing my restraints and the muzzle.

Helped to stand, I tried not to think about how I ached everywhere. The _faenon_ led me to my clothes, and helped me dress when my hands shook and fumbled. I slid the chip into my pants pocket when I could do so unobtrusively.

I felt a surreptitious kiss on my cheek. I hoped the cameras hadn’t caught it—it would mean punishment for the assistant if they had. I brushed my fingers against the _faenon_ ’s.

Ryder and Song were in the waiting room with the doctor when I emerged. The doctor fixed me with cold eyes. “See? Your pet is fine. Contact me if there are any problems with the chip.”

Ryder leapt up and stopped short of hugging me, perhaps mindful of where we were. “Are you all right?”

I nodded. I would never tell him or even Song any of what had happened here. It was done, and I’d gotten what I came for.

“Then let’s go,” Ryder said grimly. “This place is making my skin crawl.”

_You have no idea._

***

The first few days back on the ship I was barely able to hold any food down. I hadn’t been prepared for the impact of having the hormone suppressor lifted. It was a struggle to get out of bed. My mind was a fog, and everything took twice as much effort to do. For once, I was free of the mindless desire for sex, but I wasn’t sure this was much better.

I was finally driven to seek out Dr. Song.

She looked relieved to see me. “I’m glad you came in.” She’d wanted to run tests on me as soon as we’d gotten back from Traiad, but I’d had more than enough of doctors and put her off.

She connected her monitor to my chip and pored over the readings while I sat on the edge of the infirmary table trying to hold my lunch in.

“Basically, your body is being overwhelmed by hormones. They should eventually stabilize, but you may be in for mood swings and nausea until then. I would give you something but I don’t want to disrupt the process. If they don’t stabilize on their own in another month or so, we may need to intervene.”

I wasn’t thrilled about being nauseated for the next month, or the mood swings, which seemed to be manifesting as a general hatred of the world and wanting to sleep most of the day.

“How are you doing? In general, I mean.”

“Fine?” My weird hormone fluctuations also made me cold all the time, and I hugged my arms encased in a thick sweater I’d bought in Nayera.

“How are things with Ryder?” she asked casually.

I knew she didn’t exactly approve of me sleeping with him, or rather him sleeping with me. “I haven’t talked to him since we got back from Traiad.”

I was avoiding him, to be honest. I’d taken apart the console in my room to integrate the chip, and was able to connect to the server I’d used when I was reporting on Tal. Same information: ship movement, trades, anything else of note. Nothing incriminating, but I still felt guilty reporting on Ryder behind his back.

And I’d had no desire for sex since we’d gotten back. On top of the nausea, it was weirdly depressing. Even Dak had taken to asking if I was all right every time he saw me. It was like my loss of sex drive had sapped all my other energy away. It hardly seemed fair to show up at Ryder’s cabin just wanting a chat.

“Did something happen between the two of you?”

“No. Can I go?”

“You’re free to go whenever you like,” she said, a bit coolly.

I’d hurt her feelings. I wasn’t used to non- _faenon_ caring anything about me other than how they could use me. “I…haven’t felt much like having sex since the chip was modified.”

“That’s not surprising, with all the hormones you’re processing.” It was her turn to hesitate. “Was that the only aspect to your relationship?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you had a night out together in Nayera. I thought perhaps you were developing a…companionship.”

“A companionship.”

“I’m not asking to pry. I just thought you might want to talk to him about how you’re feeling. With the hormonal changes, I mean.”

The last thing I could imagine was sitting down with Ryder to explain why I didn’t want to have sex with him right now. Or maybe ever. Another wave of depression hit me. “You think I should have sex with him anyway.”

“Of course not,” she said, horrified. “Changes like this can be difficult to process. Sometimes it helps to talk it over with a friend.”

Were Ryder and I friends? We were good in bed together, and legally he owned me. I wasn’t sure there was room in there for friendship. But I remembered walking back to the ship with him in Nayera, how he’d given me his jacket when he’d seen I was cold. The dinner we’d had. I wasn’t sure what that was, but it hadn’t been about sex or ownership.

“I guess I can talk to him about it.”

“It was a suggestion, Ash. Do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

I slid off the table. “Thanks.”

She covered her worried expression with her usual professional façade. “Come back if any of your symptoms worsen. Otherwise, see me next week so I can check your hormonal balance again. Hopefully it will be beginning to stabilize by then.”

“Thanks. I will.”

When I left the infirmary I headed to the mess. I wasn’t hungry but Ell stocked a tea that had been helping a little with the nausea.

The mess was empty. I found the tea and heated a pot of water, then took it with me to the table to let the tea steep. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them, trying to work through this feeling of desolation.

It felt like I’d lost more than my sex drive, but I wasn’t sure what. Not even reconnecting with Belar’s network had sparked much interest in me. The thought that I’d be spying on my new crewmates wasn’t helping.

Ryder came in while my tea was still steeping, and my shoulders stiffened. He must have seen—and certainly must have known I’d been avoiding him—but he just went to the cabinet for one of the MREs and set it to heat.

“How are you?”

Everyone was asking me that lately. I stirred the loose tea in the pot, then with Ell’s borrowed strainer, poured the tea into a mug. “I’m fine.”

His MRE finished heating. Ryder said, “I can take this back to my cabin.”

I really had been behaving like an ass to him. “You can stay.”

Ryder hesitated, but then brought the MRE with him to the table and sat across from me. “You don’t seem fine. Was it the procedure?”

I warmed my hands on the mug. “I went to see Doctor Song. She said my body is still adjusting.”

“I imagine it’s a change.”

I blew on my tea, wishing I knew how to talk to him this way. “I’m sorry I haven’t been…available to you.”

He stiffened. “Is that how you see it? You’re not obliged to me for anything.”

I had no idea what my obligations were, to be honest. This was all new territory. “Why did you buy me from Tal?”

“You have to ask?”

I guess I did. “It was an awfully large investment to make in someone just because you felt sorry for them.”

He blew out a breath. “I don’t feel sorry for you.” I gave him a look. “Okay, maybe I did feel sorry for you, stuck with a monster like Tal. I saw the bruises when I brought you on the ship. I know what he did to you after you left me that night.”

I tensed. Of course he had.

“I saw an injustice and acted to fix it. Maybe it was shortsighted, maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I liked you and didn’t want to see you with Tal.”

I hadn’t been prepared for that level of honesty. “I liked you too. You treated me like a person, even when we were fucking. I liked—like—being with you.”

Ryder waited.

“I just don’t feel like having sex right now,” I blurted.

“So, we don’t have sex,” he said easily. “It’s not transactional. For the record, I like having sex with you too. But it’s hard to enjoy something when you know your partner isn’t.”

“Not hard for some,” I said darkly.

“Hard for me, then.” He picked up his fork. “We can take things as they come. If you decide what we had isn’t what you want anymore, then we’ll work on being friends. All right?”

I nodded, though to be honest I was more confused than ever. And scared, too, that my sex drive would never come back. You’d think after what the Korl put us through I’d be happy never to share someone else’s bed again, but it didn’t stop me liking sex. Even Tal wasn’t always cruel.

“Actually, if you’re feeling up to it, we’re stopping on Helios in a few days to unload that cerium we got on Luna Five. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for you to come with me, to see that side of things.”

Part of me couldn’t help thinking it would also help me glean more information for Belar. “Thanks. I’d like that.”

“That’s settled then.” He hesitated. “Are you sorry I bought you from Tal?”

“No.” I’d been pissed as hell then, but I couldn’t say I was sorry about it now. Particularly not after that reminder on Traiad of what I’d escaped. “Are you?”

His wry mouth curved in a smile. “No.” He stood up and disposed of his MRE, then headed to the door. “I’ll let you know when we land on Helios.”


	7. Ryder

Helios was two-thirds arid wasteland and one-third spectacular ocean and rocky cliffside villages. I took one look and decided they were just waiting for an earthquake to shake them loose into the sea. Give me the vacuum of space all day long; the spaceport gave me vertigo just looking out the clear windows onto an open sky and sea hundreds of feet down.

“What town is the contact in again?” I asked Hyo, who was taking a rare break from the bridge to join the crew for a few days’ much-needed break. She and Ell were spending a couple of nights in one of the villages, and Dak was taking some kind of adventure hiking tour to what were apparently spectacular waterfalls further inland. Song was taking one for the team and staying on the ship, though I knew she’d made plans out for the next night.

I hated leaving the ship but the sale of the cerium would more than pay for this impromptu vacation, and they deserved the break. Ash and I were the only ones on the clock, at least for the day.

“Edessa. There’s a shuttle running from the spaceport that leaves on the hour.”

I’d contacted the buyer that morning. She was expecting us at noon.

I glanced at Ash. He’d dressed for the weather—sunny and hot—and looked far more comfortable than me in loose pants, sturdy shoes, and a sleeveless tank. I was already sweating in my boots and pants, though I’d donned a t-shirt in deference to the heat.

I arranged a refuel at the station before we took the high speed shuttle to Edessa. It was further inland, which reassured me, and had a lot of modern mixed in with the Old Earth charm that at least didn’t make feel like I’d been transported back to some ancient Greek island.

Ash hung back while I negotiated with the buyer in her offices, which were sleek and airy and blessedly cool. Her company was in the excavation business for metals and materials found inland, and used cerium in their lasers. We chatted while Ash looked through some of the display cases holding fossils and artifacts they’d dug up from whatever had inhabited this planet in the centuries before the Earth colonies got here.

“That’s over six million years old,” she said, when Ash stopped at a case holding a large rib bone from some prehistorical mammal.

Ash looked interested, which was more than I could manage. I was more focused on the living. “How many Earth colonies are there in this sector?”

She looked surprised by the question. “The Korl hold the bulk of it, of course, and there are a couple of Scyrian settlements scattered about. There are only three human colonies this far out.”

“What’s it like, interacting with the Korl?”

I guess I could see why he was interested, but it still seemed an odd question to ask.

She shrugged. “We leave them alone and they leave us alone. There’s trade between the planets, of course, but we’re all under the purview of the Commerce Council here, so it’s regulated. We’ve never had problems with the Korl.” She paused. “You’re Faenon, aren’t you?”

Ash stiffened but nodded.

“I was on Alda’ira a few years back. It’s lovely.”

“I haven’t been there since I was young.”

“No, I suppose not.” An awkward silence fell. She cleared her throat. “How many kilograms did we agree on?”

We went back to negotiating the cerium. She arranged for an offload from the ship the next day, and we wrapped up our remaining business.

The sun was blazing overheard when we left, and I looked for a place to get something to eat. Preferably with some shade.

“Alda’ira,” I said, mangling the pronunciation, I was sure. “Is that the Faenon home planet?”

“Yes.” His eyes scanned the array of buildings; there really wasn’t much here aside from office buildings. We’d probably do just as well with the MREs back on the ship.

“What’s it like?”

“Not like this.” I didn’t think I was going to get any more from him, then he added, “It’s very green. Lots of forest and foliage. You can go for miles without reaching a settlement. Plenty of water, but not like this.”

I wasn’t eager to get any closer to the ocean, but his expression prompted me to ask, “Do you want to go down to one of the villages? We’ll probably have a better choice of food.”

He brightened. “Can we?”

I could deal with a little vertigo to see him excited for once. I’d been more than a little worried about him since we got back from Traiad, though Song assured me his reaction was normal. “Sure.”

We found a transport heading down to one of those seaside towns hanging out over the cliff. Did they really not have earthquakes here? I had to admit the view was spectacular when we found a shaded outdoor café with a veranda leading out to the cliff.

Ash went straight to the edge and looked down while I tried not to have a vicarious loss of equilibrium. I was fine staying at our table several meters from the edge. There was still plenty of view.

“There are birds nesting underneath,” he said.

“I bet.”

He glanced back at me, and the picture he made sent my heart skittering. The sun made a halo of his silver white hair, brilliant against the blue of the sky and sea. With his pale skin and lean limbs, he seemed preternatural and insubstantial, as if called from the air for a momentary visit before dancing away.

Our food arrived and he left the veranda wall reluctantly, solidifying in the shade from canvas hangings overhead.

“I should have bought you a hat. You’re probably not used to sun like this.”

He shrugged and set in on the food. At least his appetite had returned.

I watched him and tried not to think about how much I wanted him. It had been hard as hell being around him these last few days and not touching him. _I_ had been hard as hell. I was spoiled, I guess, finding someone whose sexual interests had coincided with mine; now I wasn’t sure what we were. Despite what I’d told him in the mess hall that day, I wasn’t sure I could just be friends with him.

“There’s a walk along the sea wall,” Ash said hopefully, when we’d finished eating and paid. “I saw a sign as we were coming in.”

_Sea wall_ was awfully optimistically for what they called the tiny barrier along the cliff, but I wasn’t eager to go back to the ship either. “Not without a hat.”

“For you too,” he said. “Your nose is red.”

I put my hand to my nose self-consciously. It did feel sore. “For me too.”

There was a shop selling floppy straw hats for tourists from the space port, and I bought two of them. Ash somehow made it work, though I was sure he could make anything look good. I had no doubt I looked like an idiot in mine, but Ash didn’t laugh and I figured I wasn’t going to see any of these people again. That was one benefit of space travel.

We walked along the cliff. I’d gathered Helios was a popular destination for holiday, with the space port nearby and its plethora of quaint little sea villages, but it was at the peak of its summer season—in other words, brutally hot—and not too crowded.

“You’ve never been back? To your home, I mean.”

Ash looked out over the sea, and I wondered what he saw there. “The training facility was on the Korl home planet. My first master lived there, too. Tal traveled most of the time.”

“Have you thought about going back?”

He shrugged. “It’s not a _faenon_ planet anymore.”

That hadn’t really answered my question, but I supposed it was as good as I was going to get.

The afternoon sun sank beneath the roofs of the buildings behind us, providing some relief from the heat, and the walk was pleasant despite my determination not to look anywhere but straight ahead. “I don’t want to go back,” Ash sighed, voicing my own thoughts.

“We can stay here tonight,” I said, and he immediately stiffened. “Or not.”

He glanced at me sidelong. “You know it’s not that I don’t want to be with you.”

I hadn’t actually known that, not for sure, so it was nice to hear. “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.”

“I know.” We walked a few more minutes in silence. “We can stay here tonight. We passed signs for rooms for rent.”

This entire place was geared to the tourist industry, so I wasn’t surprised. “We can get two rooms.”

He rolled his eyes. “We can share a room, Ryder.”

“One room, then,” I said, trying not think about how I wasn’t likely to get much sleep being in the same room with him and not being able to touch him.

We found a place with a terrace overlooking the sea—not really a plus in my book, but Ash immediately went out to stand by the railing. I lay back on the bed, which at least was big, and checked my data pad for when the cerium was scheduled to be offloaded the next morning. We’d have enough time for a leisurely breakfast before having to head back.

I checked in with Song, who assured me everything was fine on the ship, then pinged Hyo and Ell to let them know we were staying on the planet for the night. I wasn’t surprised when I got back a brief, _busy, can’t talk_ , in response. Yeah, I bet they were busy. I checked out the nearby planets I’d scouted as having potential business opportunities, and sent out a few queries to contacts I’d worked with in the past. The other benefit of space travel was never knowing where you were heading next, and that suited me just fine.

Business done, I put the data pad aside and watched Ash. With his airy clothes and silver hair, surrounded by the flowers overhanging the terrace railing and the sea peeking around the corner, he was like an art nouveau painting come to life.

Feeling my attention, he turned his head. Our eyes met, and I knew I wasn’t imagining the spark lighting up between us.

“Do you want to go out and get something to eat?”

He shook his head. “Maybe later.” He left the terrace, and every step bringing him closer to me echoed the thudding of my heart.

The bed dipped under his slight weight. He folded his legs under him and sat back on his heels. He’d discarded the hat, as I had, and it had left a slight indentation in his hair.

“You got some sun on your arms,” I said inanely.

He glanced down at his slightly pink arms. “I’m not used to it. I’ve never been any place like this.”

I’d gathered that. “I grew up on a horse farm in Arizona, on Old Earth. Lots of sun, but no ocean.”

“What’s a horse?”

I looked for some pictures on my data pad and showed him. “Alda’ira has similar animals, but not so big,” he said. “I don’t know if _faenon_ kept them on farms.”

“How much history of your people is left?”

“The Korl destroyed most of it when they invaded, but we never had anything like their technology, or that of humans. Most of our history was just stories passed down from our elders. It’s probably not even accurate. When I was young the elders used to tell us stories, but I don’t remember many of them.”

“How old were you when you left?”

He thought back. “Seven or so standard cycles. We’re taken to another facility to be taught Korl history and some rudiments of the language, as well as Standard, until our heat cycles begin. Then off to the training facility.”

“How old were you then?”

“Twelve, maybe thirteen cycles?”

I wasn’t able to hide my anger. “You know that what the Korl did to your people is monstrous. The rest of the universe isn’t like that.”

“But they tolerate it. Even many _faenon_ have grown to tolerate it.”

“But not you.”

“Not me.” He hesitated, as if he felt he’d already shared too much. I could understand wanting to play it close to the vest, considering what they’d been through, but it was hard being forced to learn about him through this fractured lens. I doubted I’d ever see the full scope of him.

“Tell me about Arizona.”

He curled up on the other side of the bed as I told him about growing up with two brothers on my parents’ farm outside of Tucson. They were still there, as far as I knew—not that I hadn’t gotten along with them, but since I was a kid all I could see were the stars, and I’d joined the military as soon as I was legal.

It hadn’t taken long to realize that military life wasn’t for me—too many orders to obey—but by then I was already addicted to space travel, and after a few years working on other people’s ships, I’d saved enough for my own.

Personally I thought it was a fairly dull life story, but he seemed interested, and it was hard not to keep talking when you had a captive audience.

“How did you meet the others?”

“Odd jobs, here and there. Loners seem to attract one another.”

“Is that what you are? A loner?”

I turned on my side to face him. “Maybe I haven’t found the right person yet.”

He smiled. “I can’t see you settling down somewhere like here.”

“Not like here, maybe. I can’t say I haven’t been tempted sometimes, though.”

His smile evened into a more serious expression, then to my surprise, he leaned forward to kiss me lightly on the lips.

“What was that for?” My lips tingled where they’d pressed against his. My heart thudded in my chest.

“I just wanted to do it.”

Our eyes met and I could see his uncertainty, so I made the next move and angled my mouth over his, gently enough that he could push me away if he wanted to.

He didn’t push me away. He murmured something against my lips, but then we were kissing open mouth, tongues sliding against each other, and I was slowly getting drunk on the taste of him.

He made a sound in the back of his throat and pressed closer to me. His lean body was flush against mine, and I couldn’t particularly hide how hard I was. By the press of his dick against my hip, he was getting hard too.

I reached between us to stroke his cock through the thin material of his pants.

“Feels good,” he murmured.

I wondered if he’d never been stoked slowly to arousal before; maybe it had always been all systems go for him.

“Take your shirt off.”

He gazed at me half-lidded, recognizing the hint of command. I wanted to see how well that still worked between us, with all the other changes he’d been going through.

He pulled the thin tank over his head, and hissed a little when I thumbed his nipple. “Sensitive.”

“Yeah?” Probably the hormones he was still processing. I rubbed circles around it with my thumb, watching it peak and fill out. He made that sound in the back of his throat again when I dipped my head to lick it. I bit the nub gently.

“Fuck, Ryder.”

I liked the way he sounded, like he was slowly getting stoned on the sensation. I spent a lot of time on his nipple, getting it red and wet and hard, listening to his breathing quicken and turn ragged.

I ignored the cant of his hips against mine and instead moved to the other nipple. When he tried to rub himself off on me again I pinned his hips to the bed.

“Ryder,” he gasped. “I’m going to.”

The air filled with the scent of his arousal, and he pumped his hips up, cock shuddering in his pants as he came all over them.

“Jesus.” I shifted back and looked at the fucked-out daze of his face. I untied his pants and slipped my hand in, and sure enough, his groin was covered in come and his cock was already softening. I moved my fingers lower. He was so wet they slid in easily along his clit, and he gasped again and shuddered out another orgasm.

“Any more sensitive zones you want to tell me about?”

He managed a laugh through his post-coital lethargy. “I don’t even know. I’ve never had that happen before just from, you know.”

I thumbed his licked-raw nipple. “From this?”

“Yeah.” He stretched and kicked his pants and shoes off, and looking at him lying naked in my bed, unself-conscious and insanely beautiful, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to dig my way out of the hold he had on me. Or if I’d want to.

“You can fuck me, if you want,” he said shyly.

_If I want_ was pretty much a given. “We haven’t, uh, talked about birth control.”

“Oh.” He flushed a little. “I haven’t even thought about that.”

I admit, my brain was quietly imploding, thinking about Ash and pregnancy. It was my own fault for insisting on thinking of him as male when he wasn’t. I still had a ways to go to seeing him as a non-gendered person. 

“How does it work for the Faenon? Taking the Korl out of the picture. Like, how do you decide who will, uh, carry?”

“It figures pretty high in a lot of legends, actually. Like, there’s this one famous love story where the two _faenon_ played a game of _ursu_ for twelve nights straight waiting to see who would go into heat first. Talind ended up going into heat early and Sokara took advantage, and Talind was pissed off enough to leave and birth their child with a pack of cho’tal. They reunited eventually, and the child grew up to be some hero or another.”

I had a lot of questions—like what _ursu_ was and what the hell was a cho’tal—but I ended up asking, “Do partners often switch?”

“I think they used to. The Korl are more comfortable putting us into roles they understand. At the breeding farms some _faenon_ only carry while a few are picked to seed them. It’s all regulated and not particularly romantic.”

My anger at the Korl only intensified. “Have you ever thought about which you would prefer?”

“Not really. I always assumed I wouldn’t have a choice.” He rested his hand on his stomach, rubbing it unconsciously. “I think it would depend on who I was having the child with. Have you thought about it?”

The question took me by surprise. “I’m not sure it would be fair to a kid to bring them into my current lifestyle, and I don’t think I’m ready yet to change it.”

“Makes sense. I can’t say I want to have a child right now, either.”

I was a little relieved, to be honest. “So, birth control.”

Ash turned on his side, facing me. “ _Faenon_ are only fertile when we’re in heat. We can ask Doctor Song what our options are, but I’m not in heat now.” His hand moved between us to close around my clothed cock, which had softened some with the conversation but was quickly gaining interest again.

“But you still want to have sex.”

He shrugged. “Maybe everything’s starting to stabilize, like Doctor Song said.” He pulled at the fastening of my pants, and I helped by tilting my hips up so he could pull them over them. He straddled my legs and curled over me to lick the tip of my cock.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to make you feel good the way you made me feel good.”

“You make me feel good.”

He made me feel fairly spectacular, in fact, and when his mouth closed over my cock I wasn’t sure how long I was going to last.

He deep throated me a few times, which made me see stars, then pulled his mouth off my cock, moving hands up under my shirt, tickling the chest hairs there.

“Take it off,” I said.

A smile twitched on his face, and he began sliding the t-shirt up my skin, until he reached my arms and I lifted them for him to pull it off and discard the shirt to the side. He touched my left nipple. “Are you sensitive there too?”

“Try me and see.”

He dipped his head down to lick a circle around the small, hard bud of my nipple.

I reached between us and angled my fingers into the wet folds of his pussy. He made a sound and stopped licking, pushing down on my fingers.

“No, keep going,” I said, as he moaned and braced himself on his hands. He sighed and resumed licking my nipple, delivering small nibbling bites in retaliation as I worked my fingers in and out of him.

He was so wet he was dripping. It wasn’t a whole lot different from when he’d been permanently in heat. His mouth on my nipples felt good, but I wanted to feel those folds around my cock, so I nudged his hips in place and guided myself in.

He sat up and braced his hands on my thighs, moaning as it sank me even deeper. “Ride me,” I said, but he was already moving his hips in a rhythm that was going to slowly drive me insane.

It felt too good to hurry him up, however, and I just let myself enjoy the vision of this gorgeous being fucking my cock. I’d done nothing in this world good enough to deserve him.

He was hard again, his cock bobbing between us, and I closed my hand around him and gave him a few hard strokes. “ _Fuck_ ,” he muttered, and started coming all over my stomach, as his pussy walls tightened around me.

I grabbed his hip and pushed up, release blinding me as I spilled inside him. Before I was even done I rolled us over so he was trapped beneath me, pumping into him the rest of my orgasm in a blind need to claim him as mine, to lay my mark in him.

When he’d squeezed out the last of my seed, I shifted my weight to the side but stayed inside him. I was still hard. He kissed me open-mouth, all sloppy lips and tongues.

I couldn’t imagine perfection being anything other than this.

But the one thing I’d learned from the universe was that perfect never lasted.


	8. Ash

Ryder had a storm face on when he came into the mess where Hyo and I were drinking tea.

“What’s up?” Hyo asked.

“The fucking Korl. We’re being routed to a mandatory checkpoint station.”

Hyo sat up. She didn’t look alarmed, but she didn’t look happy, either. As far as I could tell, they didn’t deal in contraband, and we hadn’t picked up anything since the offload of cerium on Helios. But no one liked officials rifling through your stuff.

“You think they’re just looking for a bribe?”

“Probably. There’s nothing for them to find, but that won’t stop them if they’re bored or looking for some easy credits.”

He mixed coffee to heat up, not hiding how pissed off he was. Even with his body tense with coiled anger, I couldn’t help a corresponding tightening in my groin and weird fluttering in my stomach at seeing him. We hadn’t fucked since Helios, and my heat had been coming on the last few days, if my recent mood swings were any indication. Song had confirmed my hormones were shifting back into a normal pattern for _faenon_ , but the onset of my heat was leaving me irritable and horny by turn.

“How long do we have?” Hyo asked, rising to dump the rest of her tea.

“A couple of hours before we get there. I already adjusted our navigation, and Ell is on the bridge.”

“Well, there’s no helping it,” she said reasonably. “They’ll want to search the ship. I’ll let Dak and Song know to lock down anything they don’t want lifted.” I knew the Korl, and couldn’t dispute her assessment.

Ryder’s eyes rested on me once Hyo had left. “Will you be all right?”

“Me?” I stalled. “I’ll be fine.”

“We’ll have to leave the ship while they inspect it,” he said. He’d been tip-toeing around me lately. I suppose I hadn’t given him a lot of clear signals. But it was hard to tell him what I wanted when I didn’t know myself.

I shrugged. “If it’s anything like the checkpoint stations I’ve been to, there’ll be stuff to do,” I said, deliberately misunderstanding him. He didn’t have to worry about me. I could take care of myself.

_Yeah, like you did with Tal?_

I pushed the voice out of my head.

He stirred powdered milk into his coffee. “We haven’t seen the Korl since Traiad.”

I didn’t want to think about Traiad. I smiled teasingly. “You don’t think I can play the part of a convincing pet?”

“It’s not that simple.” He brought his coffee over and sat opposite me. “You’re not a pet anymore.”

“Has Song been in your head again?” Being this close to him was playing havoc with my senses. I wanted him to throw me over this table and fuck me. Wanted to feel his hand on my ass. I curled my hands around my tea to hide their twitching. I was getting wet from just talking with him.

“Have you gone to see her yet?”

“About what?” I stalled. I’d been reluctant to ask her about the whole birth control issue. For some reason it embarrassed me. I didn’t want anyone knowing about my sex life, even though she knew Ryder and I were fucking. Or at least that we fucked sometimes. It was the gap between the two that left me in a no man’s land of not knowing what we were to one another.

What I wanted us to be to one another.

Aside from really, really needing him to fuck the shit out of me right now.

He sighed. I tried not to stare at his hands. He had good hands, big enough to feel it when he smacked my ass, gentle enough to tease me to orgasm.

I closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath.

“Even just to talk to her,” he said, apparently oblivious to my predicament. “I can go with you, if you like.”

“Why?” It came out more biting than I’d intended.

“Or not,” he said carefully.

I knew I was being a little shit, but I couldn’t seem to help it. “Let me know once we’ve docked at the station.” I rose, angling away from him to hide my hard on, and dumped the rest of the tea in the disposal and put the mug away to be cleaned. I felt his eyes follow me as I left the mess.

Once back in my cabin, I stuck my hand in my pants and came in three short strokes of my dick. Shuddering from the aftershocks, I collapsed back on my bunk, my hand sticky and my body still horny. It had done nothing to relieve this itching need.

Fuck. I cleaned myself up and logged into the secure server to report our new flightpath. To my surprise, there was a message waiting for me.

 _Contact on Urel_.

Short and to the point. Urel must be the checkpoint station. I’d made contact before, usually brief exchanges of data or coded information, but the fact that this had come in so quickly after we’d changed course raised the hairs on my neck.

_You’ve been giving them flightpaths for weeks. Of course they know exactly where you are._

Great. All I had to do was get away from Ryder and the others long enough to make contact. On a Korl station, no less.

I started going through my closet. If I was going to play the pet again, I needed to look the part.

***

When Ryder saw me, his eyes darkened. “What the hell?”

I was dressed in the tight leather pants I’d picked up on Luna Five, and a black mesh shirt. I’d also donned the leather collar I’d worn for Tal, which seemed to be the main focus of Ryder’s ire.

“The Korl will expect to see a pet,” I said, not missing the way Ryder’s eyes raked me up and down. He might be pissed, but he couldn’t hide that he liked what he saw. “They won’t let a _faenon_ go out in the station uncollared.”

The rest of the crew shifted awkwardly. “We’ll meet you two in the waiting area,” Hyo said, and they left us on the ramp leading to the docking station from the cargo bay.

Ryder’s eyes returned to the collar, his mouth twisted in a frown. “Is that really necessary?”

I batted my eyelashes at him. I’d also put on makeup for the first time since I’d been on the ship, borrowing some from Ell. I didn’t care that it was all supposed to be a show for the Korl—I felt pretty fucking sexy.

“Yes,” I said breezily, walking past him down the ramp to the docking bay.

I heard him sigh and follow me. “You can see everything through that shirt,” he growled.

“Yeah?” My nipples tightened, imagining his eyes on them. “You like that?”

“Ash—” he said, but then we were at the security check between the dock and the rest of the station.

The Korl security officer scanned us for weapons. “I need to register your pet,” he said to Ryder, and held up a chip reader.

Ryder gritted his teeth, but I turned my back to the security officer and lifted my hair off the nape of my neck for him to scan me. I felt the tickle of the reader. When it beeped, I released my hair and turned back around.

The Korl consulted the readout. “You’re Gabriel Ryder?” he said to Ryder, who nodded. “You’re responsible for anything your pet does on the station. He breaks something or causes a scene, it’s on you.”

I sidled up to Ryder and hugged his arm. “I’ll be good, Master.”

Ryder’s jaw tightened. He ignored me and said to the security officer, “Understood.”

“You’re free to go through,” the Korl said, waving us in.

We passed through into the waiting area that served as a buffer between the dock and the rest of the station. “I think you’re enjoying this,” he bit out.

“I think the question is, are _you_.” I tucked my hand into the back of his pants.

As loathsome as being a pet of the Korl was, it was still something I knew and had been trained for, and playing the part was like slipping into a familiar skin. I could try to explain that to him, but he wouldn’t understand. He’d just end up feeling even more guilty for liking me dressed up this way.

He looked me up and down, and if I hadn’t been horny before, that look would have done it. Yeah, he liked it.

“I think you’re asking for trouble.” He said it half seriously, half intrigued.

“Then let’s go out there and make some.” Whoever my contact was wasn’t going to approach me in the waiting area. There’d be at least one bar or club on the station, and that would be the ideal place to make contact without raising alarms. “You don’t really want to spend the next few hours waiting here, do you?”

By then we’d reached the others, and they caught my last statement.

Song said, “I was planning to check in with the medical facility to see if they have any information they’re willing to share about Faenon physiology.”

“And we’re getting something to eat,” Ell said, including Hyo and Dak in her glance. "Even Korl food is better than the crap we have on the ship."

“Guess that leaves us,” I said innocently.

Ryder didn’t exactly look enthused. I knew he was still pissed at having to dock here at all, and I hadn’t helped matters any, wearing the collar. Even if he secretly liked it. “Guess so.”

Outside the waiting area, the station was a bustling polis like any other small city. The checkpoint station was mostly an excuse to force travelers in to spend their credits. The group split, leaving me and Ryder, and I tugged him toward the nightlife district.

“You’re sure this is where you want to go?” Ryder asked doubtfully.

“I want a drink,” I said. “And I want to dance.”

I was getting looks from some passersby, Korl and other species who appreciated a pet, and Ryder hadn’t missed them either. His dark mood was starting to coalesce in a storm cloud.

“Here,” I said quickly, seeing a likely looking neon sign above a night club, and he let me lead him through.

The place was full but not packed, about a dozen people out on the dance floor.

I went straight to the bar and ordered. The bartender gave my collar one look and snorted, until Ryder repeated the order and showed him his commerce chip. He slid onto one of the bar stools reluctantly.

I took the one next to him, turning to face him and resting my foot on the base of his stool, so my knee brushed his thigh.

“What are you doing?” He looked over at me quizzically.

I leaned in and put my hand on his thigh. “Just letting everyone know that I’m yours.”

He snorted. When the bartender returned with our drinks, he knocked his back and returned the glass to the bar a little too forcefully.

“Want to tell me what’s really going on?” My heart stopped, thinking about the transmissions I’d been sending. “Are you nervous about us after Helios?”

I relaxed. “No.” I swirled my drink in my glass. “Maybe I just wanted to spend time with you.”

“Here?” His raised eyebrow encompassed the whole of the club.

“Yes, here. Why are you being so fucking uptight?”

His eyes darkened, even as his mouth twitched in a look I recognized. A look that said he wanted to throw me over this bar and spank my ass for being such a little shit. Desire pooled in my groin. My cock strained against my leather pants.

“You think if you’re bratty enough, you can get my attention?”

I took a long sip from my drink. “It’s working, isn’t it?”

His hand shot out to my collar, hooking his fingers in the leather and yanking me to him. My heartbeat shot up and I nearly fell off the stool. My nipples tightened in sharp arousal.

“You want to play this game with me?”

I licked my lips, and didn’t miss how his eyes zeroed in on them. “Yeah. I do.”

He swore under his breath, and in the next moment had yanked my stool closer to his, and pulled me forward until I was practically straddling his thigh. Wetness gushed between my legs as the bulge in my pants met hard muscle.

He leaned into my ear. “Try harder, slut. Or I’ll get myself a proper pet.”

Fuck. I closed my eyes as lust left me breathless. How did he know the exact right thing to say?

I put my hand on his thigh and slid it upward, toward the hard bulge in his pants. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good for you.”

“Yeah?” He wove his fingers through my hair and tugged. The small pain sprang tears to my eyes. “You’d suck me off right here? Get on your knees on this filthy floor and let me use you until I was done with that slut mouth of yours?”

“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes.” My pussy clenched, and I ground my hips on the stool, trying to get friction on my clit.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Fuck.” I gripped his thigh and tried hard not to come.

“Let’s dance,” he said abruptly.

“What?” I asked, lust making me stupid.

He closed his hand around my wrist and pulled me from the stool. “You said you wanted to. If you’re going to act like a slut, it might as well be for everyone to see.”

I closed my eyes and followed him, cock and clit throbbing.

The music was upbeat, but Ryder didn’t try to match it. Instead he crushed me to him and slid his hand down my leather-clad ass, squeezing. Our straining dicks brushed up against each other.

“You think you can show up with that collar and these pants, and that stupid fucking see-through shirt, and not get my attention?”

Lust was making me dizzy. I clung to his biceps, just trying to stay upright. If I hadn’t already been flushed, the press of bodies around us would have sent me into overdrive. “You like what you see?”

“Yeah. I like a show.”

The hairs on the back of my neck pricked, and I glanced to the side. A _faenon_ was dancing close to us, dressed similarly to me in a tight black shirt and pants, black hair angling over a pale face. Eyes slid over mine and shook my lust-addled brain awake.

My contact. He must have followed us here.

I pushed off from Ryder, and backed up slowly in the direction of the _faenon_.

“What are you doing?”

I licked my lips and held his eyes. “Putting on a show.”

Hands rested on my hips, pulling me back to a hard chest. The _faenon_ had caught on to my play.

I turned and put my arms around the _faenon_ ’s neck, leaning in to murmur, “He’s watching us.”

“I know.”

Ryder wasn’t the only one watching, as we moved together in rhythm to the music. This was a favorite pastime of the Korl, watching their pets dance, sometimes having us fuck for their amusement.

“You have something for me?”

The faenon’s hand went around my waist and tucked fingers inside the waistband of my pants. The touch of metal from the chip he stashed there was cold on my skin. “Will your master punish you for dancing with me?”

 _I hope so_. But I didn’t particularly want to share mine and Ryder’s peculiar relationship. “I’ll be fine.” I stole a glance Ryder’s way and shivered at the look there. Oh yeah, he liked watching me dance with another like this. He was going to like making me pay for it even more.

Lips moved on my neck, licking the sweat there. “Don’t send anything until you’re past the station’s signal scans. I can’t transmit anything from here without flagging them.”

“What exactly am I transmitting?”

The _faenon_ gave me an odd look. “What does it matter?”

I guess it didn’t. But I wasn’t thrilled about working blind. “You can’t tell me anything else?”

“The less you know, the better.” The _faenon_ ’s hands moved from my waist to my hips. “Thank you for the dance.”

“Anytime,” I said, sliding my arms from around the _faenon_ ’s neck and backing away.

I felt Ryder’s hand on my collar, pulling me back to him. “Trying to make me jealous?”

I turned and slid my hand up his shirt. His skin was as flushed and hot as mine. “Yes. Did it work?”

“Enough that I say we get out of here.”

I heartily agreed.

Luckily the Korl had finished inspecting the ship by the time we made it back to the dock, and they let us back on to wait for the others. Once in Ryder’s cabin, he pushed me hard against the wall. “You little slut.”

I gazed at him through half-lidded eyes. “You like it, don’t you. You like me being your slut.”

He dragged his thumb over my bottom lip, smearing my lipstick. The hard look in his eye set my heart pounding. I knew he was playing a game, same as I was, but fuck he knew how to play a game.

“Turn around.”

I itched to obey, but I couldn’t risk him finding the chip. “I need to use the bathroom.”

His eyebrow raised, but he backed a step to let me squeeze through. My knees shook as I headed to the small bathroom and closed the door behind me.

I reached into my waistband and retrieved the chip. It was small enough to go unnoticed, but I needed somewhere Ryder wouldn’t look until I had a chance to retrieve it. The cabinet behind the sink held a number of toiletries, and I settled on his small shaving bag.

That taken care of, I used the toilet then gazed at myself in the mirror. My lipstick was nearly rubbed off. My eyeliner had smeared below my eyes, giving them a sultry look. I looked like a debauched little slut.

My pussy clenched.

When I went back into the bedroom, Ryder had taken off his shirt.

Fuck, I liked looking at him. He had enough body hair to make him look exotic, as _faenon_ had none and Korl very little, but not too much to mar the smooth skin and firm muscles of his chest. He saw me looking. “Come here.”

I sauntered over. “You had something in mind?”

His eyes went to the collar at my throat. “Take that off.”

I touched the leather. “What if I want to keep it on?”

He didn’t like me wearing Tal’s collar, that was for sure. “You want a collar, I’ll get you a collar,” he said evenly.

The words went straight to my cock. I put my arms around his neck the way I had the _faenon_. The parallel wasn’t lost on him. “Then let’s pretend this is yours until you get me a proper one.”

Eyes dark, he said, “Are you going to wear it for all the crew to see, like a slutty little pet?”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to wear it just for you.”

His mouth crushed over mine. I opened for his tongue forcing its way in. His fingers slid under the collar, tightening the leather around my throat until my head pounded.

“Get your pants off,” he said shortly, once he let me up for air. He was breathing as hard as I was, his lips flushed and kiss-bitten.

“Why, are you going to fuck me?”

“I’m going to spank you like the brat you are.”

Even better. I pulled my shirt over my head, dropping it to the side, then played with the fastening of my leather pants. “Are you going to make me?”

“I don’t need to make you. You’re already hot for it.”

I closed my eyes, swaying a little. “Maybe I am, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work for it.”

He grabbed my wrist and slapped it to my waistband. “Get your fucking pants off.”

My hand shook as it worked on the zipper. I was so hard I could barely get it down. Ryder waited until I’d gotten the leather past my hips and bent over to get them the rest of the way off, before putting a heavy hand on my back.

“Stay there.”

Fuck. I was bent over, my fingers nearly to the floor, my pants around my ankles. His fingers teased the crease of my ass, then dipped lower to press into my folds. “God, you’re dripping. Can’t wait to feel my hand on your ass, can you.”

“No,” I choked out. His fingers moved in and out of me, and I chased them, needing more friction to come. He pulled them out, then his hand came down hard on my ass. The blow would have unbalanced me without the steadying of his hand on my back.

“Fuck.” My ass stung.

“Get over the side of the bed,” he said. I moved to push the pants from my ankles, and he snapped out, “Leave them there.”

I fell to my knees and crawled over to the bed, so hard and wet my brain was about to short out.

The bed was low enough that I could lay my chest flat on it, bare ass up and my dick crushed against the edge of the mattress. My ankles were held tight by the leather pants.

“Hands in front,” he said, placing my hands palm down on the bed above my head. “You move them, and I’m getting the cuffs.”

A full body shudder took me. I half-wanted him to get them now. But as much as I liked feeling them on my wrists, they still terrified me. “I won’t move them.”

I waited for his hand to come down again, but instead I heard him doing something behind me. When the blow came down, it wasn’t his hand but the hard crack of his leather belt.

“Fuck,” I yelled out as pain burst over my ass, building even when the initial sting had passed. My heart pounded crazily. It had felt…fuck. Like white hot fire burning over me.

“Too much?” Ryder asked in a careful voice.

“No,” I choked out. “No. Please. Fuck.” I moved my ass, trying to find relief from the burn, desperate to feel it again.

“If you don’t want it, you need to tell me.”

“I want it, I want it,” I babbled.

A pause, then the leather cracked down on me again.

Overwhelming, searing pain. I fisting the bedding and pulled at it helplessly. My nipples chafed against the blanket, and I focused on that small discomfort to take my mind off the giant fire that was my ass as the belt came down again.

I took three more strikes until I screamed and bucked and came all over the blanket, my balls emptying themselves and my pussy clenching in quivering release.

I heard mewling little sobs and realized they were mine. Ryder’s hand moved over my burning ass, and I choked back sobs at the renewed pain. I shook my head on the bed, back and forth. “No. No.” I didn’t even know what I was protesting.

I felt him carefully untangle my pants from my ankles, and then tug at my hands clutched in the bedding. “It’s all right. You can let go now.”

I released the blanket and clung to him as he lifted me up into the bed, taking me in his arms as I sobbed into his chest.

His hand went up and down my back soothingly. “It’s all right,” he said, in a different voice from the hard ass one earlier. “You were so good.”

How messed up was I that his words took me back to the early days at the training facility when I’d been so desperate to be good, only half understanding why I was there and what they wanted from us. All I’d wanted was the praise, the security of knowing I’d pleased them. I would have done anything to earn their approval.

A scream ripped through my throat, muffled by his chest. His arms tightened around me. I beat my fist against his back, but he seemed to understand I wasn’t trying to push him away. He just held me close and took it, until I was too exhausted to do anything other than lie there quietly in his arms.

Some time passed. It had been a while since I’d lost time, but when I was aware again, my eyes were heavy and everything was stiff. I stretched and arched against him. His half-hard cock pushed into my hip. “Fuck me,” I said, nuzzling the curve of his neck.

He chuckled. “Someone forgot to see Doctor Song.”

Ugh. Why the hell had I put it off? Fuck this fertility cycle thing. I reached between us to stroke his cock, then began to scoot down.

“Ash,” he said, and put a hand on my shoulder to stop me, but I shook my head and freed myself from his light grasp, and slid down the bed until I was level with his cock.

He sighed but didn’t stop me from burying my face in his groin. I breathed in his human scent. It was different from a _faenon_ ’s, different from a Korl’s. To me, it was uniquely him. I nuzzled his cock and his balls, and his hand came down to rest on top of my head, carding my hair gently.

I licked along the length of his cock, then under the head. He caught his breath when I took him in my mouth, just the head, my tongue finding his slit.

My backside ached. I felt every stripe of his belt across my ass when I took his cock in my mouth, then in my throat. An odd sense of peace had drifted over me. I listened to his ragged breathing as I brought him closer to the edge. I held him in my mouth when he would have pulled me off, swallowed his come when he arched and thrust into me.

I realized what it was I felt, when I curled up again at his side.

I felt safe.

***

I winced when I pulled the leather pants up over my sore ass. Ryder had put some sort of cream on it, but the slightest touch sent off fireworks of pain and pleasure through all my nerve endings.

“Stay,” Ryder said. He was naked on the bed, the sheet barely covering him, and the sight of him like that did funny things to my chest.

“You have a ship to fly.” The rest of the crew had returned, and we were cleared to take off.

“Ell and Hyo fly the ship,” he said, amused.

“Aren’t you the captain? Aren’t you supposed to oversee them or something?”

“You’re just trying to get out of staying.”

He was half-right. I wanted to stay. We hadn’t spent a full night together except for the one on Helios. But staying here with him felt dangerous. It would be all too easy to let myself fall into this.

I went into the bathroom to retrieve the chip, and tucked it into my waistband. When I returned to the bedroom, Ryder was still in bed, watching me.

“I’ll talk to Doctor Song,” I said. I tugged the mesh shirt over my head.

“Let me know if you want me there.”

I nodded. Slowly I unbuckled the collar at my throat, and dropped it on his desk. It still felt like there was something in the room, waiting to be said, and the pressure of it was unnerving. “Until next time,” I said awkwardly, and left his room.

Mine felt cold and empty when the door whooshed closed behind me. My own fault for thinking about how nice it would have been to spend the night in Ryder’s bed.

I took the chip from my waistband and put it on the desk next to the console. Just a standard data chip. Fuck knows what was on it. For a second I considered forgetting I ever had it. I could throw it down the disposal right now.

I checked the ship’s navigation status. We were clear of the station. I inserted the chip, then logged into the secure server to transmit whatever was on it. When a flashing light told me the transmission was done, I pulled the chip out, then ground it under the heel of my boot, throwing the pieces in the disposal.

I should feel good that I was doing one more thing to help the cause, but all I felt was tired and empty.

I rolled into bed, hugged my pillow to my chest, and thought about Ryder’s belt on my ass.


End file.
